Mozambique will become the latest country to receive assistance from the Commonwealth Secretariat to prepare a claim for additional areas of seabed.

To date, the Secretariat has helped 14 countries to lodge submissions for additional areas of continental shelf covering, in total, over 1.5 million square kilometers of seabed

In order to claim additional areas, Mozambique must make a submission to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

By making a submission, the southern-African country will seek to affirm its rights to an extensive area of additional continental shelf and to the important natural and living resources of the seabed. This includes potentially lucrative oil, gas and mineral deposits, as well as living sedentary marine organisms.

The Secretariat's assistance will take the form of specialised legal and technical advice. "The preparation is a major undertaking which requires that consideration be given to a range of highly specialised legal, scientific and technical issues," said Joshua Brien, a Legal Adviser and Leader of the Secretariat's Maritime Boundary Programme.

UNCLOS is a multilateral convention that sets out a framework of rules and principles to govern the management of all ocean space. It has been ratified by 157 countries, including 47 Commonwealth member states. Under UNCLOS, a coastal state seeking to claim extended areas of continental shelf beyond the traditional 200 nautical miles limit must make a submission to the Commission.