RULES OF PROCEDURE OF THE COMMISSION ON THE PROTECTION OF THE BLACK SEA AGAINST POLLUTION

RULE 1          REPRESENTATION

1. Each Contracting Party to the Convention on the Protection of the Black Sea against Pollution (hereinafter referred to as “the Convention”) shall be represented on the Black Sea (Istanbul) Commission (hereinafter referred to as “the Commission” - Article 17, item 1 of the Convention), by one representative, who shall be appointed by his/her Government. The Ministries of Environment or the equivalent authorities in the contracting parties will officially inform the Permanent Secretariat on the governments’ decisions for appointment or substitution of the Commission members. This Representative may be accompanied by Alternate Representatives, Advisers and Experts.  In accordance with article VII, p.6 of the Convention, a Secretariat will be established.
2. Upon the decision of the Commission, the Government of any state not party to the Convention, and any international, inter-governmental and non-governmental and other organizations, may be invited as observers at the meetings of the Commission.
3. Upon the Commission’s discretion the countries not party to the Convention and any international, intergovernmental or non-governmental organization whose activities have significant impact on the Black Sea marine and coastal environment or substantial contribution to the Black Sea process may be granted permanent observer status.
4. General conditions for granting the permanent observer status are described in the Annex of this Rules of Procedure
5. The Secretariat may, within the appropriate line of the budget adopted by the Commission, invite representatives of the Activity Centres or other members of the Commission subsidiary bodies to the Commission meetings, if so required by the Agenda
6. Upon the decision of the Commission, observers, elected by the forum of the non-governmental organizations, may participate at the meetings of the Commission. For this purpose, the non-governmental organizations shall be invited to organize a regional forum from which two representatives shall be elected.
7. The Secretariat may, within the quota of the budget adopted by the Commission, and after informing the Chairman, designate representatives to activities of other international organizations.

RULE 2          CHAIRMAN

1. The Chairmanship of the Commission shall be assumed by each Contracting Party in turn, in alphabetical order of the names of the States in the English language.
2. The Chairman shall serve for a period of one year and during his/her term he/she cannot act in the capacity of  representative of his/her country.  Should the Chairmanship fall vacant, the Contracting Party chairing the Commission shall appoint a successor to remain in office until the term of its Chairmanship expires.
3. In addition to exercising the powers and duties conferred upon him elsewhere in these Rules, the powers and duties of the Chairman shall be:

a/ to convene the regular and extraordinary meetings of the Commission;
b/ to declare the opening and closing of each meeting of the Commission;
c/ to preside at all the meetings of the Commission;
d/ to ensure observance of these Rules and to decide all questions of order raised at meetings of the Commission;
e/ generally, to make such decisions and give such directions to the Executive Director which will ensure, especially in the interval between the meetings of the Commission, that the business of the Commission is carried out efficiently and in accordance with its decisions.

RULE 3          MEETINGS OF THE COMMISSION

1. The Commission shall hold a regular meeting for decision-making at least once a year. The regular meetings of the Commission shall adopt a Work Plan and a budget for the following financial period and a budget estimate for the financial period following thereafter as well as approve the auditor’s report for the previous financial year.
2. An extraordinary meeting of the Commission shall be convened at any time by the Chairman at the request of any contracting Party. The meeting shall be held as soon as possible at such time and place as the Chairman determines, however, not later than 45 days from the date of the submission of that request.
3. Invitations to the meetings of the Commission shall be issued on behalf of the Commission by the Secretariat to all Contracting Parties and to any Government, any inter-governmental organization and any non-governmental and other organizations invited by the Commission to send observers to the meetings.
4. Invitations to the members of the Commission and the representatives of governments and organizations to which a permanent observer status has been granted shall be sent at least sixty days before the dates fixed for the opening of the regular meeting.
5. The rest of the invitations will be sent as soon as the consultation with the Commission members in this regard will be finalized
6. The Chairman of the Commission or the Executive Director has the right to invite any person or representative of any organization to attend some of the events, organized by the Commission as specially invited guests provided that it will contribute substantially to the success of the Commission activities but the invitee does not meet some of the observership granting criteria or due to the limited time the consultation procedure for granting the observers status cannot be carried out
7. Invitations to extraordinary meetings shall be transmitted by the Secretariat after the submission of the request by a Contracting Party, not later than thirty days before the date fixed for the opening of the extraordinary meeting.
8. The names of the members of the delegations shall be submitted to the Secretariat not less than two weeks before the date fixed for the opening of any meeting of the Commission.

RULE 4          AGENDA

1.         The Secretariat shall, in consultation with the Chairman, prepare the provisional agenda for the meetings of the Commission.

2.         The provisional agenda and to the extent possible the supporting documents, shall be transmitted by the Secretariat to the Contracting Parties at least 45 days before the date of the regular meeting and without delay after the submission of the request for the convocation of an extraordinary meeting.

3.         The provisional agenda for a regular meeting shall include:

a/         all items which have been decided by the Commission at a previous meeting;
b/         all items proposed by any Contracting Party;
c/         all items which the Chairman or the Executive Director deem necessary to put before the Commission.
d/     all items which have been decided by the Commission since its previous meeting.

4.         The provisional agenda for the extraordinary meeting shall consist of items proposed for consideration in the request for the holding of the meeting.

5.         At the beginning of the meeting, the Commission shall adopt the agenda for the meeting.

6.         During each meeting, some items may be canceled from, and additional items added to, the agenda, if the Commission so decides.

RULE 5          COMMITTEES, WORKING GROUPS AND OTHER
                        SUBSIDIARY BODIES OF THE COMMISSION

1.         The Commission shall establish and elaborate appropriate terms of reference for such Committees, Advisory Groups or other subsidiary bodies as are necessary for the implementation of  the Convention.

2.         The chairmanship of the Advisory Groups will be taken for one year by the countries on rotational basis, starting with the country, hosting the respective Activity Centre. Each Committee, Advisory Group or other subsidiary body shall appoint, among the nationals of the Contracting Parties, a Chairperson. The Chairperson of the Committees, Advisory Groups, or other subsidiary bodies may exercise the right to vote on behalf of their delegations

3.         The subsidiary bodies of the Commission may, after consultations with the Chairman of the Commission, invite outside specialists to participate as observers for any specific purpose.

RULE 6          VOTING

1.         Each Black Sea coastal state shall have one vote in the Commission.

2.         Decisions and recommendations of the Commission shall be adopted unanimously by the Black Sea coastal states. If for any reason some contracting parties are not able to attend the meeting, the decision can be adopted with the unanimity of those present and with the subsequent written approval of the missing ones. In this case, a minimum quorum of four representatives present is necessary.

3.         Between meetings, the Commission can achieve consensus by written statements.

4.         Where any proposal before the Commission can be divided into separate parts, any representative may demand to put each part to the vote separately.  Those parts of the proposal which have been approved shall then be put to the vote as a whole; if all the operative parts of the proposal have been rejected, the proposal shall be considered to be rejected as a whole.

RULE 7          SECRETARIAT

1.         To perform its duties under the Convention, the Commission shall be supported by a Secretariat, which shall have a juridical personality.

2.         The Secretariat shall be composed of nationals of all Black Sea coastal states.

3.         The Commission shall nominate and appoint an Executive Director, who is the chief administrative official of the Secretariat, and other officials of the Secretariat according to the rules of the Staff Regulations.

4.         The Executive Director shall appoint the technical staff as provided in the rules adopted by the Commission.

5.         In addition to exercising the powers and duties conferred on him/her elsewhere by the Rules, the Executive Director shall:

a/         issue the invitations to the meetings of the Commission, as provided in Rule 3;
b/         prepare the provisional agenda for the meetings of the Commission with the Chairman and transmit it, and the necessary working documents, to all Contracting Parties as provided in Rule 4;
c/         make all necessary arrangements, including secretarial assistance, for the meetings of the Commission and its Committees, Working Groups and other subsidiary bodies;
d/         perform all functions assigned to him/her by the Financial Regulations of the Commission;
e/         prepare reports in accordance with Paragraph 3 of Rule 9 of these Rules of Procedure; and,
f/          perform such other functions that are necessary for the administration of the Convention and other tasks entrusted to him/her by the Commission.

RULE 8          LANGUAGE OF THE COMMISSION

The official language of the Commission shall be English.

RULE 9          RECORDS AND REPORTS

1.         At the end of each meeting, the Secretariat shall prepare a report to be adopted by the Commission and transmitted by the Secretariat  to all Contracting Parties and any Government, inter-governmental organization and non-governmental and other organization invited to send observers to the meeting.

2.         The Committees, Advisory Groups and other subsidiary bodies to the Commission will produce reports on all their meetings as well as on each topic the Commission may deem necessary. The meeting reports should be submitted to the Secretariat within one monts after the completion of the meeting. The Advisory Groups shall produce Annual Reports presenting all the activities in their field aiming at the implementation of the Strategic Action Plan on the Rehabilitation and Protection of the Black Sea and the Work Plan of the Commission. These reports shall be submitted to the Permanent Secretariat not later than sixty days befor the date fixed for the opening each regular Commission Meeting.

3.         Further, the Executive Director shall prepare before the first regular meeting each year (the annual meeting) a draft report giving an account of the activities of the Commission during a period from the end of the preceding annual meeting.  The report shall be sent in advance to the Contracting Parties to the Convention.

RULE 10        AMENDMENTS TO THE RULES OF PROCEDURE

1.         These Rules of Procedure may be amended by the Commission by unanimous decision.

Annex

to the Rules of Procedure of the Commission on the Protection of the Black Sea Against Pollution

General conditions and procedure for granting the permanent or ad hoc observer status

1. Introduction

The present Annex to the Rules of Procedure of the Commission on the Protection of the Black Sea Against Pollution aims at providing guidance for the Commission in case of granting permanent or ad hoc observers status to any country, international, inter-governmental and non-governmental and other organizations, as the Commission deems appropriate.

2. Procedure for Application and Admission

The observer status may be granted by the Black Sea Commission for a limited period of time or on permanent basis, for all or only selected meetings of the Commission or its supplementary bodies or other activities in the framework of the Convention. In case limitations on the observership are applied, this should by specified in the invitation letter sent to the observer by the Permanent Secretariat.

The  initiative for granting the observer status could be taken by:

1. The candidate expressing interest in obtaining the status by way of submitting an official application or at lest unofficial request;

The Black Sea Commission under particular circumstances and driven by its specific interest.

3. Legal Grounds

The general legal grounds for granting observer status by the Commission on the Protection of the Black Sea Against Pollution is provided by Rule 1, Paragraph 2 of the Rules of Procedure.

4. Objective of Granting the Observer Status

Granting the permanent or ad hoc observer status should be targeted to all kind of supporting the implementation of the Convention, its Protocols, the Decisions of the Diplomatic Conference in Bucharest 1992 or of another meeting of the Contracting Parties, as well as the Odessa Declaration and the Strategic Action Plan for the Rehabilitation and Protection of the Black Sea. The status should provide the conditions necessary for the proactive participation of the partners of the Black Sea Commission in the events they will be involved and also in all other kinds of joint activities.

5. Basic Criteria and Principles

The basic criteria for selection of the potential observers to the Black Sea Commission are the following:

1. Acknowledgement of the principles and objectives of the Convention, its protocols as well as the decisions of the Commission;
2. Possession of specific scientific or technical competence related to the implementation of the Convention;
3. Clearly defined institutional/administrative structure and operational managing bodies;
4.  Existence of mechanisms for authorization of their representatives to the Commission’s meetings or other events of relevance, giving them the right to act on behalf of the observer organization as accredited representatives.
5. Availability if sufficient funds or external financial support allowing them to cover the expenses related to their observership.

The above criteria are aiming at the most effective cooperation, but they do not mean any priority ranking or discrimination of the observers and the potential partners.
 

6. Participation

The Permanent Secretariat invites the Observers to take part in the particular meetings and to perform any other exchange of experience and information in oral or written form in each individual case. The invitation should inform the Observer also on the possible agenda items, which are to be dealt with exclusively amongst the delegations of the Contracting parties.

General conditions for Observers participating in particular meetings are the following:

1. Active cooperation in support of the Black Sea Commission objectives;
2. Fulfillment of the Chairmen’s instructions about the meeting conduct and management;
3. Fulfillment of special arrangements made together with the Black Sea Commission or its supplementary body.

7. Right and Duties of the Observers

The Permanent and the Ad Hoc Observers shall exercise the following rights and duties:

1. To be informed by the permanent secretariat on the date, place and the agenda of the meetings or other joint activities in which they are entitled to participate;
2. To have access to the documents of the Black Sea Commission and its subsidiary bodies in compliance with the Commission’s decisions;
3. To be given the possibility express their views and positions at the Black Sea Commission’s meetings, as well as at the meetings of the Commission’s subsidiary bodies, and to have them reflected in the relevant documents;
4. To take part in the programs or projects initiated or implemented by the Commission in which they are invited to participate, on voluntary basis, or to make any other voluntary contributions;
5. To respect in their practices the principles and objectives of the Convention.

8. Reciprocity

The cooperation between the Black Sea Commission and the observer organization should be based on the principle of reciprocity. Generally, the coasts of the participation in the meetings shall be carried by the participants’ own budgets. In case of joint actions, the costs-sharing shall be discussed on case-by-case basis. Taking into consideration the limited budget of the Black Sea Commission, the observers who are facing financial problems, are encouraged to approach the possible donors or funding institutions to support their participation. The Commission is ready to back such efforts.