The Ship has Reached the Shore
Nations agree to a historic marine biological diversity treaty
After nearly two decades of work and a final burst of 36 hours of round the clock negotiations, on 3 March 2023 in New York, Singapore’s Ambassador for Oceans and Law of the Sea Issues and International Conference President Rena Lee was able to announce that “The Ship Has Reached the Shore”:
“As the conference room burst into thunderous applause and cheers from delegations and participants, she reported that the Conference finished the text of the agreement on marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction.”
The ink is scarcely dry. The Articles need to be re-numbered. The text is provisional. But it exists as:
Cargo ship off Gibraltar. Samuli Jokinen, Unsplash
The Agreement applies to the high seas; the areas beyond the reach of national jurisdictions. Anyone who has read The Outlaw Ocean by New York Times writer Ian Urbina will have a sense of how lawless the high seas can be. Article 2 of this Agreement states -
“The objective of this Agreement is to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, for the present and in the long term, through effective implementation of the relevant provisions of the Convention and further international cooperation and coordination.“
The Agreement aims to achieve this Objective in a variety of ways including:
The fair and equitable sharing of marine genetic resources and digital sequence information;
Promoting conservation and sustainable use of areas requiring protection, including through Marine Protected Areas;Protecting, preserving, restoring and maintaining Biodiversity and Ecosystems;
Requiring Environmental Impact Assessments, and in some cases Strategic Environmental Assessments, of the potential impacts on the marine environment in areas beyond national jurisdiction, which should be assessed before the impacts are authorised.
Monitoring of impacts of authorised activities, and public reporting, with reports sent to a newly established Scientific and Technical Body;
Capacity building and the transfer of marine technology;
Setting up a Conference of the Parties, the Scientific and Technical Body, a Secretariat, a Clearing House mechanism for exchanging information, and Implementation and Compliance Committee, a Dispute Settlement mechanism;
Financial Resources and a Voluntary Trust Fund to facilitate the participation of developing States Parties; and
In Annex 1, Indicative Criteria for Identification of Areas, that reflect the close match between this Agreement and the marine provisions of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreed in December 2022.
The Treaty will come into force once 60 countries have ratified it, so that is where the next efforts need to be concentrated. Countries that signed it now have to ratify it, to ensure that their own national legislation supports it, and to make sure that they deliver effecitve enforcement of its provisions. Without that, it is just fine words on a page.
Some of the reaction to the Treaty gives a sense of its real importance and the measure of the achievement of those who concluded it.
The World Wildlife Fund:
“WWF strongly welcomes the agreement of the text for a new globally legally binding High Seas Treaty reached by nations today in New York, creating a framework to conserve marine life and restrain harmful activities in two thirds of the ocean”.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the Agreement a:
“…victory for multilateralism and for global effort to counter the destructive trends facing ocean health – now and for generations to come. It is crucial for addressing the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution ... It is also vital for achieving ocean-related goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.”
Ambassador Rena Lee and all the others who worked so hard over the years to achieve this deserve our grateful thanks.