Kenya and the Secretariat working together on extended continental shelf claim

The Commonwealth Secretariat’s Special Advisory Division (SASD) has just  started  working with the Government of Kenya in the first phase of that country's preparatory process of submitting an extended continental shelf claim to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) under the Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS 1982).

Under this Convention, coastal states with wide continental margins can claim  further maritime space outside the  200 mile limit of the normal continental shelf if they fulfil certain criteria imposed by the Convention and submit such claims to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf before 2009. 

Kenya is one of those coastal states with the potential to extend their continental shelves and  this project is expected to produce a Desktop Study Report and strategies for the continuation of the preparatory process post desktop study until submission some time before 2009.