Amendment to the rules of procedure of the Hydrographic Services and Standards Committee (HSSC)

IHB File No. S3/8151/HSSC CIRCULAR LETTER 41/2015 15 June 2015 AMENDMENT TO THE RULES OF PROCEDURE OF THE HYDROGRAPHIC SERVICES AND STANDARDS COMMITTEE (HSSC) Reference: IHO CL 23/2015 dated 13 March - Proposed Amendment to the Rules of Procedure of the Hydrographic Services and Standards Committee (HSSC) Dear Hydrographer, 1. The Circular Letter in Reference proposed the adoption of an amendment to the Rules of Procedure of the Hydrographic Services and Standards Committee (HSSC). The Directing Committee would like to thank the following 46 Member States that replied to the Circular Letter: Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Cuba, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea (Rep. of), Mauritius, Monaco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russian Federation, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Suriname, Sweden, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America, and Uruguay. 2. 44 Member States supported the adoption of the proposed amendment. The comments of the two Member States who objected to the proposed amendment are provided in Annex A to this letter, together with the outcome of their review by the Directing Committee. 3. As of the date of issue of the Circular Letter in reference, there were 82 Member States of the IHO with three States suspended. Therefore, in accordance with paragraph 6 of Article VI of the Convention on the IHO, the majority required for adoption of the proposed amendment is 40. As a result, the proposed amendment is adopted and the amended Rules of Procedure of the HSSC are now posted on the IHO website. On behalf of the Directing Committee Yours sincerely, Gilles BESSERO Director Copy to: Chair, HSSC Annex A: Member States’ responses to IHO CL 23/2015 and comments by the Directing Committee.  Annex A to IHO CL 41/2015 MEMBER STATES’ RESPONSES TO CL 23/2015 AND COMMENTS BY THE DIRECTING COMMITTEE PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO THE RULES OF PROCEDURE OF THE HYDROGRAPHIC SERVICES AND STANDARDS COMMITTEE (HSSC) CHILE The discussion was generated in order to solve an omission with regard to ABLOS representation at and reporting to HSSC. We approve the change so far made of the RoP for ABLOS, agreed with the International Association of Geodesy (IAG). This change is in line with what was agreed at the HSSC6. We do not approve the proposed new text for the RoP for HSSC, because we consider that ABLOS is a special case, but HSSC WGs must be represented by their Chairmen or Vice Chairmen, not by “representatives” of their Chairmen as the proposed wording indicates. To our understanding, at HSSC6 there was no agreement to change the representations of the HSSC WGs. For this reason, Chile proposes the following new text for the RoP for HSSC: “2.1 The Committee shall be composed of representatives of Member States. The Chairs of the relevant subordinate bodies of the Committee and the Chair of ABLOS or his/her nominated representative shall attend and report at all Committee Meetings. International Organizations and accredited Non-Government International Organizations (NGIOs) may attend Committee Meetings.” Comment by the Directing Committee: The proposed amendment conforms to the text proposed by ABLOS and agreed in principle by the HSSC at its 6th meeting, subject to the endorsement of the related change to the Terms of Reference of ABLOS by the International Association of Geodesy. The proposed amendment caters for cases which have occurred in the past where neither the Chair nor the Vice-Chair of a Working Group can attend the HSSC meeting, notably when the position of Vice-Chair is vacant. REPUBLIC OF KOREA With regard to the role of nominated representatives in HSSC in the paragraph 2.1 of Rules of Procedure: In the paragraph 2.1, it is mentioned that the Chairs of relevant subordinate bodies of the Committee shall attend and report at all Committee Meetings. In the Rules of Procedure of subordinate bodies, the Vice-Chair shall preside and exercise all the duties of the Chair in the absence of the Chair. Therefore, the Vice-Chair on behalf of the Chair may report at all Committee Meeting of HSSC. However, in the absence of the Chair and the Vice-Chair, if the Chair nominates representatives, it should be considered as below. The subordinate bodies of the Committee are composed of member states, experts, observers, delegates of IHB. The representative on behalf of the Chair should be confined to member states or delegates of IHB. By the way, in the paragraph 2.1, the term of "their nominated representatives" is ambiguous, and it can lead to confusion. In addition, other working groups do not include that phrase except for ABLOS. Therefore, the phrase can cause confusion, and it needs to be expressed more clearly. Comment by the Directing Committee: The view that, in the absence of the Chair and Vice-Chair, the nominated representative should be confined to representatives of the Member States or of the IHO Secretariat could be unnecessarily restrictive, noting the significant participation of Expert Contributors in many Working Groups. The alignment of the Rules of Procedure of the Working Groups with the now-amended Rules of Procedure of the Committee is to be instigated by the Committee in accordance with article 1.9 of its Terms of Reference.