34. Are there any financial obligations resulting from becoming a Party to the Protocol?
In accordance with
Article 29.5 of the Protocol, the financial rules of the Convention apply, as appropriate, to the Protocol. Under the financial rules of the Convention, every Party to the Convention is required to make an annual contribution to cover the costs of the administration of the Convention, including the functions of the Secretariat. The scale for assessing the levels of contributions that each Party is to pay is based on the United Nations scale of assessment for the apportionment of the expenses of the Organization. Contributions by developing country Parties, in particular the least developed ones, are relatively small and usually nominal. In fact, as far as the least developed country Parties are concerned, they are not, as a rule, required to pay more than 0.01 per cent of the total budget approved for any budget year.
It should be noted that, according to
Article 31.1 of the Protocol, the Secretariat of the Convention serves also as the Secretariat to the Protocol. The costs of the Secretariat services for the Protocol, to the extent that they are distinct from those to the Convention, shall be met by the Parties to the Protocol. At its first meeting, the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Protocol appvoed a core budget programme for the distinct costs of the Protocol and provisionally adopted a scale of assessment to apportion those costs among the parties to the Protocol (see
Decision BS-I/10).
