It is not possible at present to calculate fully the area of the extended continental shelf. The area will change as - more submissions are received from States with a later submission date, preliminary information documents are developed into full submissions, additional States ratify the Convention, and recommendations are adopt- ed. Using the information calculated from the submis- sions alone, the present area of extended continental shelf is estimated to be more than 26 million km2 9 (this includes the area generated from Antarctic Territory and overlapping areas). If you include the area estimated from preliminary information, this adds a further 4 million km2 10. It is most likely that the area submitted and the area resulting from recommendations will not be exactly the same. However, the recommendations issued so far agree for 97% of the area originally submitted (not in- cluding the submissions by the Russian Federation and Brazil for which recommendations have been made, but which did not include summaries for public release)12.


The seabed (and everything below the seabed) beyond 200 M is made up of potential extended continental shelf and the Area. Current information indicates that the po- tential extended continental shelf represents more than 10% of the total area under national sovereignty for two- thirds of all submitting States. Only when the continental shelf area is finalised will the extent of the Area be de- fined. A State’s entitlement to the extended continental


16 Continental Shelf


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36