New stage for ICAM Protocol

At their 14th Meeting, the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention and its protocols (Portoroz, November 8-11, 2005) decided to establish a Working Group of legal and technical experts to develop a draft text of the Integrated Coastal Areas Management (ICAM) Protocol with a view to its consideration and possible approval by the 15th Meeting of the Contracting Parties in 2007. It was also decided to convene a diplomatic conference for the adoption of the Protocol to be held immediately following the 15th Meeting of the Contracting Parties.
The First Meeting of the Working Group of experts designated by the Contracting Parties will be held in Split (Croatia) on April 27-29, 2006. By end of February, the Mediterranean countries were invited to nominate legal/technical experts to represent their respective governments at the meeting. Experts should preferably come from environment, and other sectors such as planning and local authorities. Also, as a preparatory activity for the meeting, MAP and PAP/RAC Focal Points were asked to send to the MAP Secretariat any proposal regarding the Protocol in writing. These will be used, together with the previous documents on this issue, as background material. The Provisional Agenda will be provided in due course, and the draft Protocol is already available on PAP/RAC web site.