Chile submits extended continental shelf claim for Juan Fernández archipelago to UN

Chile’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs presented a claim to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf for an extended continental platform around the Juan Fernández Archipelago. The filing, delivered by national borders director Carlos Dettleff at the UN offices in New York, argues that the seabed and subsoil extend to 329 nautical miles, adding roughly 71,000 km² of territory whose resources would fall under Chilean sovereignty.

The commission of 21 experts accepted the report without objection, and Chile now awaits the body’s analysis. This is the country’s third such submission – after similar claims for Easter Island in 2020 and the western Antarctic Peninsula in 2022. Foreign Minister Francisco Pérez Mackenna said the step marks a crucial advance in defining Chile’s maritime boundaries and securing future resource exploitation for national benefit.