On Wednesday 4 February 2026, EMB and its Young Ambassadors will host an ECOP Wednesday series event on the topic of "The work of DOALOS with a focus on fellowship programmes opportunities and the Regular Process for Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment, including Socioeconomic Aspects". The session will feature Marco Boccia and Vanessa Arellano Rodriguez as speakers. The talk will be followed by an interactive Q&A discussion. The event will be one hour long, from 14:00 - 15:00 CET.
In this edition of the ECOP Wednesdays event series, hosted by the EMB Young Ambassadors and the EMB Secretariat for the EMB ECOP network, Marco Boccia and Vanessa Arellano Rodriguez from the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea of the Office of Legal Affairs of the United Nations (DOALOS/OLA) will speak about "The work of DOALOS with a focus on fellowship programmes opportunities and the Regular Process for Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment, including Socioeconomic Aspects".
This presentation will provide an overview of the work of the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea of the Office of Legal Affairs of the United Nations (DOALOS/OLA), with a particular focus on its fellowship programmes and support to the Regular Process for Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment, including Socioeconomic Aspects (Regular Process). It will briefly introduce participants to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as the comprehensive legal framework governing all activities in the ocean, while emphasizing the importance of building human capacity across ocean sectors and regions, and the work of DOALOS in this effort through its various fellowship programmes. This presentation will then offer an overview of the role of the United Nations in relation to ocean affairs, particularly through the General Assembly, to contextualize the Regular Process. It will underscore the critical importance of bridging science and policy, focusing on how the Regular Process provides policy-relevant information to support decision-making at all levels, while also highlighting future engagement opportunities for ECOPs. Ultimately, this session aims to support ECOPs in their professional development, reinforcing the importance of their work and the vital collaboration with policymakers in advancing sustainable ocean governance.
Marco Boccia has worked in the field of ocean governance for almost two decades. He has covered several roles within various international organizations, such as the International Ocean Institute (IOI), the European Commission, Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, the Fisheries and Aquaculture Department of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and now with the United Nations Secretariat, in the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea (DOALOS), Office of Legal Affairs. Currently at DOALOS, Mr. Boccia leads the DOALOS team on the Regular Process for Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment, including Socio-economic Aspects, which is the intergovernmental process that produces, inter alia, the World Ocean Assessment. He also serves as Deputy-Secretary of the General Assembly’s Ad Hoc Working Group of the Whole of the Regular Process.
Vanessa Arellano Rodriguez is a Legal Officer in the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, where she primarily focuses on supporting the implementation of capacity-building programmes. Vanessa is a lawyer graduated from Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, qualified to practice law in both Ecuador and Chile. She holds two LL.M. degrees in public international law, specializing in the law of the sea: the first from University College London (UCL) and the second from Heidelberg University in collaboration with the University of Chile. She is currently pursuing a PhD in the law of the sea at the University of Hamburg. Her previous professional experience includes roles at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador and the law firm Bofill Mir & Álvarez Jana in Chile.
You can register for the session here.