May 26, 2026

The 8th International Symposium on Scientific and Legal Aspects of the Continental Shelf and the Area was held on Monday and Tuesday in Xiamen, East China's Fujian Province. The event drew global experts amid rising challenges in ocean governance, with some warning that certain countries' excessive securitization and politicization of maritime issues are eroding trust and cooperation. 

Hundreds of representatives, including delegates from institutions established under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as well as scholars from multiple countries, attended the symposium. 

Addressing the forum, Aldino Manuel dos Santos de Campos, chair of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), pointed to what he described as one of the central dilemmas in global ocean governance: the contradiction between the "physical ocean" and the "political ocean." While the ocean operates as a single interconnected system, human beings have divided it into political and jurisdictional zones that nature itself does not recognize, he said.

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https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202605/1361978.shtml