Today, Foreign Minister Jorge Faurie and Ambassador Fernando Yépez Lasso, on behalf of Ecuador’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility, signed an Inter-institutional Agreement on Technical and Legal Cooperation regarding the outer limit of the continental shelf.
The purpose of the Agreement is to lay down general conditions governing scientific and legal cooperation aimed at carrying out the necessary activities for delimiting the outer limit of Ecuador’s continental shelf beyond the 200-nautical-mile limit.
The Republic of Ecuador ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 2012; therefore, it must submit information on the limits of its continental shelf before 2022 and is thus preparing this delineation for submission to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
The Agreement is the result of various stages of cooperation, including cooperation between the Argentine National Commission on the Outer Limit of the Continental Shelf (COPLA) and its Ecuadorian counterpart, which started in 2004. Since then, the two countries have held several working meetings on this issue.
This new Inter-institutional Agreement on Technical and Legal Cooperation will contribute to strengthening the bonds of friendship and cooperation between the two countries.
