IN previous years, the International Seabed Authority has complained about the low turnout to its Assembly and Council meetings, convened in Kingston, Jamaica, each July. This year, however, there were no such issues.

Records from the Credentials Committee show that representatives from 84 states plus the European Union (EU) participated in the 22nd session, which ended Friday. As at Tuesday, July 19, 73 States had presented formal credentials, while 10 others and the EU had communicated their participation by “means of facsimile or in the form of initialled notes verbales”.

Last year the total number of participants was 61 States and the EU. The year before that (2014), the figure was 66 plus the EU, and in 2013 it was 56 plus the EU.

The increase, the ISA said, was due largely to the fact that it was an election year. Deputy secretary general Michael Lodge challenged Nii Allotey Odunton for the top job and won. The assembly also voted to fill the 15 positions of the Finance Committee, while the Council elected 25 representatives to the Legal and Technical Commission.

Lodge previously told the Jamaica Observer that the improved attendance was not merely a result of the elections, making the point that there was an oversubscription of candidates vying for the positions on the committees.

“We have 31 candidates for the Legal and Technical Commission. We’ve never seen that many candidates before. We have 17 candidates for the Finance Committee. We’ve never seen that many candidates before,” he said, arguing that it showed growing interest in the Authority and its work.

He said, too, that there was a “record number of side events from non-governmental organisations, investors, and scientific organisations” and expressed a desire to have Jamaican institutions, such as the Norman Manley Law School, for example, also mount side events to engage the members of the Authority.

— Kimone Thompson