A ceremony to award the annual Ozaki Yukio Memorial Prize to this year's recipient, Elisabeth Mann Borgese, a German oceanographer who helped draft the Law of the Sea, was held Tuesday by the Ozaki Yukio Memorial Foundation in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.
The prize, named after Yukio Ozaki (1858-1954), who worked for the political democratization of Japan, is awarded each year to a person who has shown devotion to world peace, democratization and the global interest.
In awarding the prize, Mayumi Moriyama, president of the foundation and a Lower House member of the Liberal Democratic Party, said that Borgese's belief of the sea as a common human heritage is compatible with Ozaki's view of the Earth as common property for mankind.
Borgese, a professor at the University of Malta and a founder of the International Ocean Institute, was also praised for her devotion to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which came into effect in 1993 and obliges affiliated nations to cooperatively manage and control the oceans and their resources.
Borgese replied that it is greatly encouraging to have people who share and support the beliefs that she has devoted her life to, including the goal of seeing the Earth and its resources as a common human heritage and for it to be used for the good of all.