UN member states were still hard at work on Saturday morning after a sleepless night spent trying to finalize a long-awaited agreement to protect the high seas, a fragile and vital treasure that covers nearly half the planet.
After more than 15 years of informal and formal talks, negotiators have reached the end of two new weeks of discussions — the third “final” session in less than a year.
But as of early Saturday morning in New York, participants were still wrangling over the highly political issue of benefit-sharing for research derived from marine genetic resources collected on the high seas.
“We do still have a few issues to clear, but it is making progress and delegations are demonstrating flexibility,” conference chair Rena Lee said around 1:30 am (0630 GMT).
Earlier on Friday night, Lee had said there was still “a window of opportunity to seal the deal, and we mustn’t let this opportunity slip through our hands.”
An updated draft text seen hours later by AFP did not contain the section on genetic resources, but appeared to be far from finished.
“It still has a lot of brackets in, which raises the question at this late stage of how they plan to go through it all,” said Nathalie Rey of the High Seas Alliance, a grouping of around 40 NGOs.
“But it’s clear at 4 am, they are still really trying very hard to land the treaty today, otherwise they would have thrown in the towel.”
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