Time for a genuine rethink
A global ocean – and the multiple stakeholders who decide its fate
The global ocean knows only one boundary: the coastlines of the islands and continents. In the vast space in-between, the water masses circulate, flowing from one ocean basin to another and dispersing all that the currents can carry to the furthest corner of the seas – surplus heat and carbon dioxide, but also pollutants, plastic debris and living organisms. All the regions of the ocean are thus connected – even if thousands of kilometres of the high seas separate them on the world map.
Reminding ourselves occasionally that the ocean is a vast (material) cycle where what happens in one region can have long-term impacts on many others is a fundamental prerequisite for understanding why the international community has so far failed to halt the decline of marine species and habitats. In reality, the multitude of international stakeholders and rules that determine our approach to managing the seas – known as ocean governance – do not view the global ocean as a vast unified entity in which everything is interconnected and which therefore requires collective, cross-sectoral regulation.
Instead, they separate the ocean and the sea floor into zones under different jurisdictions and assign human activities in the ocean to different sectors or thematic areas.
- 8.1 > The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) divides the ocean into various legal zones (spatial governance logic), with the coastal state’s sovereignty decreasing with increasing distance from the coastal baseline. An overview of all the various rights and jurisdictions is provided in WOR 7, pp. 262–264.
- Experts refer to two distinct regulatory approaches which have evolved over time, giving rise to the complexity of ocean governance in its current form. On the one hand, coastal states can claim exclusive rights to the marine zones surrounding them. They can thus assert sole decision-making authority over demarcated areas of the sea, which are then assigned to them under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This is known as the spatial or geographical governance logic. On the other, states regulate many uses of the oceans collectively: for example, by reaching international agreements on rules and competencies relating to specific activities, such as shipping, fisheries and aquaculture, or deep-sea or seabed mining. This is the sectoral governance logic.
- 8.2 > A world ocean: near-surface ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream in the western Atlantic transport water masses around the globe, dispersing heat and nutrients, but also pollutants, to the furthest corners of the seas.
Ocean governance
The term ”ocean governance” encompasses the raft of regulations, laws, institutions and policy measures relating to the world’s oceans and seas. It also refers to the specific area of multi-level policymaking on ocean-related topics. A multitude of governmental and non-governmental actors are involved in ocean governance at local, national, transregional and global level.Extra Info Global ocean governance issues, institutions and agreements
- The process for reaching these agreements at international level is also stipulated in part by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the supplementary agreements which deal with its implementation. For historical reasons, however, each sector or thematic area has its own stakeholders, objectives and decision-making structures, making collective and coordinated global marine management almost impossible at present.
Within the United Nations (UN) system alone, there are currently more than 25 organizations dealing with the marine environment at the international level. They include the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (UNESCO-IOC), which focuses on marine scientific research and global ocean observation. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) also plays a key role: it monitors global fisheries and aquaculture production, supports programmes that promote sustainable fishing and fish farming and produces a regular report, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA).
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is committed to the conservation and sustainable use of marine and coastal areas, while the International Maritime Organization (IMO) develops and implements regulations aimed at preventing ship accidents and marine pollution by ships. Other organizations, although not part of the UN system, also contribute to the global ocean governance regime. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), for example, works to ensure that all the world’s seas, oceans and navigable waters are surveyed and charted, thereby supporting safety of navigation and the protection of the marine environment.
CCRF
The Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (CCRF) sets out principles and standards of behaviour for the fishing industry. Their purpose is the conservation of marine and freshwater living aquatic resources and ecosystems to ensure that fishing continues to be viable in future.- The legal framework of relevance to marine biodiversity is as complex and fragmented as the array of stakeholders and sectors involved. Currently, there are at least 24 international agreements in existence whose purpose is the conservation and protection of marine species and habitats. They include:
- the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), also known as the constitution for the seas;
- the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Its goals are the conservation of global biological diversity, the sustainable use of the Earth’s ecosystems, and the fair and equitable sharing among countries of any benefits deriving from the use of nature’s genetic resources. Although the CBD covers all the world’s oceans, its official mandate extends solely to the regulation of marine biodiversity in Parties’ national waters. For international waters beyond national jurisdiction, the CBD may only implement and support preparatory measures;
- the 1972 Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter (London Convention), and
- the 2009 Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (Port State Measures Agreement – PSMA).
- Furthermore, some coastal states have joined various voluntary initiatives to protect the seas. For example, there is broad political support for the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (CCRF), adopted by the FAO member states in 1995, and the Polar Code, which was adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and covers safety, environmental and staffing matters of specific relevance to shipping operations in polar waters.
These international, intergovernmental or voluntary agreements, in turn, are transposed into applicable law through national legislation. The degree of stringency with which domestic legislation adheres to the previously negotiated standards is a matter for the governments and parliaments concerned. The fact is that at national level too, there is usually a great diversity of stakeholders, ministries and authorities that are responsible for marine issues, creating challenges for an integrated and coordinated approach.
As this brief insight makes clear, many different stakeholders are involved in writing the rules of ocean governance. As a consequence, in many areas of the sea, a multitude of diverse provisions apply simultaneously. In the best case, they have overlapping objectives; in the worst, they contradict each other, the experts say.
The weaknesses of international ocean governance
In view of the ongoing decline in marine biodiversity, experts are now investigating systematically why, within the existing legal framework for ocean governance, states are failing to protect marine organisms and their habitats effectively from overexploitation, pollution, degradation and the impacts of climate change. The research findings vary depending on the focus of study, the methods of analysis used and the participating experts’ technical disciplines. Nevertheless, the experts often arrive at similar conclusions, which can be summarized as follows:
The international community is currently unable to respond appropriately to the numerous mutually reinforcing environmental crises or collectively regulate humankind’s simultaneously increasing claims on the oceans in alignment with the interests of marine and biodiversity conservation.
Instead, the sectoral subdivision of ocean governance, which to some extent has evolved historically, is indirectly driving the loss of marine biodiversity, be-cause economically important user claims such as shipping, the food supply, energy generation and resource extraction are given far greater priority than protecting the marine environment. Under the present conditions, the experts say, states are unable to devise joint solutions that would combat the numerous all-pervasive and interwoven causes of marine biodiversity loss simultaneously.
- 8.4 > The Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) is one of the most important commercial fish species in northern Europe and along the east coast of North America. It has been heavily overfished and is now classed as endangered.
8.5 > Millions of people’s livelihoods depend on the services provided by the sea – including the women from the “Mwani Zanzibar Mamas” collective in Zanzibar. For generations, they have harvested seaweed and used it to make traditional remedies and skincare products.- Researchers and marine conservationists are therefore calling for a systemic and holistic approach to marine management. Instead of sectoral decision-making, what is needed, they say, is integrated marine management which addresses all the causal factors driving marine species turnover and develops solutions that contribute in various ways to preserving, strengthening and, ideally, restoring marine organisms and habitats. In essence, it is no longer primarily about generating as much revenue as quickly as possible from the ocean, its habitats and resources. Instead, on all matters relating to the ocean, humankind must take a long-term view and set new priorities. The health of the ocean and its numerous biocoenoses should be just as high on the political agenda as economic interests, along with the aim of guaranteeing fair and equitable access to the ocean for everyone.
Conservation of global biodiversity – this much is now certain – can only succeed if it is firmly embedded in the debate about the transformation and sustainable development of human societies. To guide action on the future governance of the oceans, governance experts recommend the ecosystem approach, which was developed within the framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The ecosystem approach is a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes their conservation and sustainable use.
This approach also integrates concepts such as the precautionary principle and adaptive management. The latter, in simple terms, means a process of continuous learning and optimization. This is possible if stakeholders monitor and control the impacts of the management measures implemented by them and critically review the results. They can thus improve their understanding of systems and processes and adapt their action plans accordingly if targets are missed or external conditions change. The core objective of adaptive management in the context of biodiversity conservation is to continuously improve the measures adopted and thus increase the adaptive capacities of organisms and living resources under pressure, e.g. by mitigating human-induced stressors.
Precautionary principle
The precautionary principle states that the most effective way to protect the environment is by avoiding all conceivable impacts from the start. It is a tenet of risk assessment. It comes into play from the very outset whenever there is a potential risk to the environment, regardless of scientific uncertainty about the risk’s occurrence. The precautionary principle is viewed as a guiding framework for international environmental governance. However, as there is no standard interpretation or unified approach to its application, there is often controversy over which actions are compatible with the principle and which are not.- The CBD’s ecosystem approach also aims to integrate modern science and indigenous and local knowledge into decision-making and to recognize that human communities, in their cultural diversity, are an integral component of many ecosystems.
All too often, the current ocean governance regime prioritizes the interests of coastal states and fishing nations and neglects the ocean’s pivotal role as humankind’s common livelihood base.
This criticism is aimed, inter alia, at UNCLOS. In Article 62, for example, UNCLOS calls upon coastal states to promote the objective of optimum utilization of living resources (fish and shellfish) in their exclusive economic zones. Where a coastal state does not have the capacity to harvest the entire allowable catch in its EEZ, it should enter into fishery access agreements with other countries, whose fleets may then access the surplus of the allowable catch.
In the past, these fishery access agreements were mainly entered into by African coastal states. They concluded treaties with fishing nations such as Russia, the USA, Japan and China, as well as with the European Union. However, as the African states were rarely able to monitor their partner countries’ fishing expeditions or impose specific conservation requirements, as recommended by UNCLOS, this led to unsanctioned overexploitation of Africa’s species-rich waters – with devastating consequences for local ecosystems and traditional artisanal fishermen in the region.
The European Union is one of the few political actors attempting to transpose the UNCLOS guidance on fishery access agreements into their own fisheries legislation. In 2013, the EU reformed the principles underlying its common fisheries policy. Since then, fishing expeditions, including in non-EU waters, have been governed by the principles of sustainable and responsible fishing, which take precedence over domestic objectives such as a secure market supply of fish and shellfish. To what extent these principles are put into practice is beyond the scope of this chapter.
Some experts emphasize, therefore, that future-proof ocean governance should no longer focus exclusively on the interests of coastal states. Instead, the ocean should be viewed in its entirety as a common good and part of the common heritage of humankind – including coastal waters currently under national jurisdiction and areas in the exclusive economic zones. As a common good, the ocean would be a non-governmental, non-private, shared resource that can only be protected if the stakeholders that depend upon it assume collective responsibility for its conservation and recovery.
- Viewing the ocean and its ecosystems as a common good and common heritage of humankind also means that every state, economic actor, community and individual is responsible for protecting marine habitats. This holistic approach is enshrined in the Preamble of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which states that “the problems of ocean space are closely interrelated and need to be considered as a whole”. However, stakeholders’ compliance with this provision has so far been patchy at best.
The current ocean governance regime lacks consensus, coordination and clarity. Monitoring of compliance with marine conservation rules is inadequate.
Appropriate entry points exist at all levels of ocean governance, starting with UNCLOS itself. As of June 2025, 170 of the world’s countries had ratified and acceded to the Convention. At that point in time, the United Nations had 193 member states. In other words, more than 20 UN member states had not yet ratified this international treaty – including the USA. This means that these countries are not fully bound by the Convention under international law. It should be noted, however, that many of the Convention’s provisions now have the status of customary international law and are therefore binding on countries which are not States Parties.
- 8.6 > Ghana’s fishermen are facing an uncertain future. Due to climate change and overfishing, catches of round sardinella (Sardinella aurita) and other schooling fish in the Gulf of Guinea decreased by more than half from 1993 to 2019.
- The new Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, adopted by members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2022, has also had little impact to date. It prohibits the granting of subsidies for illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and for fishing of overfished stocks.
It took until September 2025 for the Agreement to enter into force, more than three years after its adoption. That was how long it took for two thirds of World Trade Organization members to ratify and thereby officially accede to it.
Other frequent targets of criticism – besides states that are failing to implement UNCLOS in full or in part – are the regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs). Their members regulate and collectively coordinate fishing in various regions of the high seas and some national waters. In the past, the RFMOs and their member states were accused of doing little or nothing to enforce international standards for the conservation of the marine environment, failing to take sufficiently resolute action against illegal fishing, developing fishing strategies without considering the ecosystem approach, and cooperating minimally or barely at all with other ocean governance stakeholders.
The situation has improved somewhat now that some RFMOs are required to undergo regular performance reviews. Environmentalists and scientists are still far from satisfied, however. At present, their criticisms mainly focus on the lack of transparency on the part of the RFMOs. For example, many RFMOs deny journalists and non-accredited observers access to their working meetings. Although reports are published after the conferences, they do not disclose, in some cases, which measures or initiatives were blocked in the negotiations and by which member states. Instead of providing transparent information, the reports merely state that no agreement was reached. The lack of detailed information arguably makes it more difficult to hold countries accountable if they fail to honour their marine conservation commitments.
- 8.7 > Vor den Südlichen Orkneyinseln verlädt ein koreanisches Fischereischiff auf offener See frisch gefangenen Antarktischen Krill an Bord eines russischen Kühlschiffs. Die zunehmende Krillfischerei in antarktischen Gewässern gefährdet das Ökosystem in wichtigen Teilen des Südpolarmeeres.
- The paucity of publicly accessible information about high-seas fisheries is borne out by figures from Global Fishing Watch. According to information provided by this marine conservation organization, the positional data and fishing routes taken by 75 per cent of industrial fishing vessels do not appear in any publicly accessible database. The true scale of sea fishing and hence the potential impacts on marine ecosystems are therefore almost impossible for independent observers to determine.
New forms of uses of the seas pose another major challenge for international ocean governance. Examples are marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) techniques, new approaches for restoring marine ecosystems, and new biotech processes based on marine genetic resources. The use of these various procedures is reportedly already in preparation and has undergone testing in many cases. However, experts note that the ocean governance regime is certainly not yet capable of addressing the risks inherent in these and other interventions; nor can it prescribe effective measures to prevent harm to the ocean and its ecosystems while guaranteeing fair sharing of potential benefits. There may be financial benefits, for example, in selling carbon removal certificates and patents. However, existing verification and approval procedures mainly focus on issues relating to technical feasibility and merely call for basic minimum standards of conservation and sustainability. Issues relating to the interaction between these processes and the marine environment and other forms of ocean use are rarely considered. The same applies, the experts say, to the cultural and social risks that the use of these procedures may pose, e.g. to local coastal communities, artisanal fishermen and indigenous communities. The current rules are based on outdated assumptions. In its day, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea introduced new regulations for a multitude of previously contentious issues in marine exploitation. Its primary objective was to ensure well-ordered and peaceful cooperation among states on issues relating to the uses of the seas and oceans. The Convention is still regarded as one of the most complex and comprehensive treaties ever concluded by the international community. The negotiations were guided by the fundamental concept of a regime for the oceans and seas and achieving the equitable and efficient utilization of ocean space and resources – albeit with the proviso that the flora and fauna of the marine environment should be preserved, notwithstanding all the various uses.
CCAMLR and OSPAR
CCAMLR stands for the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, whose Contracting Parties (currently 26 states and the European Union) agreed in October 2016 to designate the Ross Sea Region as a marine protected area. The OSPAR Convention is a regional marine conservation agreement for the North Sea and the Northeast Atlantic. Its Contracting Parties are 15 European countries and the European Union.- This notion of the ocean as a common economic space is still current today and is reflected in Article 87 of UNCLOS on “Freedom of the high seas”. It grants all states various freedoms in respect of the high seas: freedom of navigation, freedom of overflight, freedom to lay submarine cables and pipelines, freedom to construct artificial islands and other installations, freedom of fishing and freedom of scientific research. This list reflects the still-current hierarchy of global user claims on the ocean: shipping is the top priority, followed by aviation and global communications and trade interests.
Resource extraction and, nowadays, renewable energies are in third place, with fishing ranking fourth. UNCLOS thus embodies the notion that the ocean is there to serve us – in other words, we generally take from the ocean and its ecosystems rather than living in harmony with them.
This is an outdated concept, in the view of many experts. They argue that the decline of marine biodiversity can be halted only if humankind sets new priorities in its approach to the oceans and seas.
Protecting marine habitats from degradation, restoring damaged ecosystems and limiting the quantities of fish and other living resources that are extracted must, at the very least, be given equal or even, ideally, higher priority in marine management than short-term economic interests. Indeed, from a long-term perspective, sustainable use of the ocean would make more economic sense as well.
Humankind should also radically rethink the role of the oceans – above all, by defining the high seas not as a free economic space but henceforth as a protected area in which interventions are permitted only if the UN member states collectively approve them. Another option is to recognize the intrinsic value of the ocean, its ecosystems and living resources. If they were granted the legally enshrined right to exist and reproduce undisturbed, humankind would have to fundamentally overhaul its approach to marine management. This radical turn would give all stakeholders the opportunity to rewrite the legal order for the oceans and initiate the transformation that is needed to preserve life in the ocean and maintain the many vital functions that it performs for humankind.
The current regime does not allow all the world’s populations to share equitably in the benefits and participate equally in decision-making about the seas. It thus increases inequality between industrialized and developing countries.
- 8.8 > In five out of eight core sectors of the international ocean economy industry, the world’s top ten corporations in each sector accounted for more than half of the global revenue share in 2018. As these figures demonstrate, the sharing of economic benefits from the use of the seas is highly inequitable.
- Never before has humankind derived so much economic benefit from the oceans as in recent years. However, these economic benefits are shared in a highly inequitable manner. Research shows that in 2018, 100 companies operating in the eight core ocean industry sectors took an estimated 60 per cent of all revenues. These global corporations from countries such as the USA, Saudi Arabia, China, Norway and France collectively generated 1.1 trillion US dollars in revenues from goods and services. Total revenues from all ocean industry sectors that year stood at 1.9 trillion US dollars. The sector with the highest revenues was the oil and gas industry, which generated around 65 per cent of total revenue, following by shipping (12 per cent), shipbuilding and repair (8 per cent), marine equipment and construction (5 per cent), fishing and aquaculture (4 per cent), cruise tourism (3 per cent) and port activities (2 per cent).
Staying operational and competitive in these ocean industry sectors requires a high level of technical expertise, along with substantial financial resources to fund investment in the necessary technology and equipment. The same applies to new sectors of the ocean economy such as wind power, marine biotechnology and deep-sea mining. Smaller companies or financially weak coastal and developing countries therefore face immense challenges if they wish to break into these lucrative ocean industry sectors. As a result, there is a vast skills and funding gap between the major corporations, on the one hand, and many developing countries and small island states, on the other. The impacts of this entrench and reinforce global inequality against the backdrop of worsening environmental crises.
- UNCLOS and its implementing agreements require all States Parties to share knowledge and technology on a voluntary basis with developing countries, landlocked countries, small island developing states and coastal African states, and to provide support – including financial assistance – to these nations in developing a national ocean industry and a national marine management strategy. Only then will these states be able to implement the Convention, realize the benefits of economic use of the oceans and seas, ensure the well-being of the oceans, participate as equal members in international and regional marine forums, and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out in the 2030 Agenda, according to a recent report by the UN Secretary-General on oceans and the law of the sea.
Successful transfer of knowledge and technology, according to the report, includes the provision of project funding, technical training, detailed operating manuals, support networks, ongoing technical assistance and collaboration with academic and research institutions, and financial instruments, such as trust funds and public-private partnerships. The report further lists a number of transfer programmes and measures by individual UN institutions, intergovernmental organizations and selected states. However, it also underlines the challenges that exist.
- 8.9 > Prices of fresh, smoked and dried sea fish have risen sharply in Senegal in recent years. One reason is that corporations are buying up local catches for fishmeal production.
8.10 > How can millions of fishermen’s claims to the sea be reconciled with marine and species conservation? Which solutions offer a future for human communities and ocean life? International ocean governance must act swiftly to find answers to these questions.- In order to provide targeted support for developing countries’ efforts to establish a sustainable marine management regime, it is essential to start by clarifying which specific form of support is needed by the country concerned and its stakeholders and how these needs can be met. Secondly, it is necessary to regulate how progress is monitored and assessed. Thirdly, answers are needed to various questions. How can funding be secured for the planned measures? And how can good cooperation and coordination avoid duplication in problem-solving and a renewed concentration of measures on a few potentially profitable industries while biodiversity and marine conservation slip out of focus again?
Considering the effects of new developments in marine technology on the environment and local communities, the report advises all stakeholders to integrate nature-based solutions and implement appropriate independent monitoring and reporting mechanisms to ensure compliance with social and environmental standards. The precautionary principle must also be applied.
Calls for integrated, environmentally and socially compatible marine management are particularly relevant because local user groups are often at a disadvantage compared to global corporations, with their knowledge, capital and technological lead. Examples of this inequality, which has negative impacts on the marine environment and the people who depend on it, can be found in numerous places.
Off the west coast of Africa, for example, stocks of round sardinella (Sardinella aurita) have been fished by industrial fleets for some 15 years, the catches of this schooling fish being used to produce fishmeal. Due to overfishing and climate change, however, catches have declined dramatically – from 100,000 to 250,000 tonnes per year in the period from 2010 to 2020 to just 10,000 tonnes annually since 2021. By contrast, prices have increased. In Senegal and neighbouring Gambia and Mauritania, most of the catch is purchased by large fishmeal factories. The fishmeal is then sold to aquaculture farms all over the world as feed for seabass and other farmed fish, which generally end up on dinner tables in industrialized countries. By contrast, many of the West African fish traders who previously purchased the coastal fishermen’s catches, before salting and drying the fish for sale at local markets, have gone out of business. Fresh or dried sea fish has become a fairly expensive commodity, at least in Senegal.
High expectations of the UN High Seas Treaty
On 19 June 2023, after almost 20 years of negotiations, states participating in an intergovernmental conference on UNCLOS adopted a third implementing agreement to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The agreement in question is the UN High Seas Treaty (Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction, BBNJ).
With the adoption of the Treaty, the international community has closed a loophole in the law of the sea. This loophole had emerged because UNCLOS itself merely contains general provisions on the utilization of ecosystems in the high seas. Granted, it imposes a duty on States Parties to preserve and protect the marine environment in the high seas. However, in view of the growing exploitation of the seas, this general provision was far from adequate. Furthermore, UNCLOS does not specifically address aspects of biodiversity conservation.
The new BBNJ Agreement contains common rules on research and utilization of marine genetic resources and addresses the issue of how the monetary and non-monetary benefits arising from the utilization of these resources (e.g. profits from patents) can be shared among all states in a fair and equitable manner. It provides the UN with a definition of “marine protected area” for the first time and specifies the conditions under which such protected areas may be designated in the high seas. It stipulates that an environmental impact assessment must be conducted prior to any project or activity carried out in international waters. It also includes provisions on transnational knowledge and technology transfer and enshrines equity for all, particularly the developing countries, as one of its guiding principles.
- The fact that states were able to reach agreement on the Treaty text was celebrated by observers and negotiators as a historic success. However, many of the elements needed to implement the Agreement are still lacking. One unanswered question, for example, relates to funding; another is how various ocean governance stakeholders should work together within the BBNJ framework and how the new agreement can be integrated into the existing global and regional ocean governance system. These and other points will need to be discussed and negotiated at the first meetings of the BBNJ Conference of the Parties (COP). At the same time, states face the task of officially acceding to the Agreement by means of ratification, approval or formal adoption. The BBNJ Agreement can enter into force on 17 January 2026. For precisely 120 days previously, on 19 September 2025, Sierra Leone and Morocco announced their official accession – the two further nations needed up to then in the list of 60 required ratifications.
There are high hopes that the Agreement will enable significant progress to be made on marine conservation, justice and equitable benefit-sharing and that it will initiate a global turnaround in our approach to the seas. For example, the Agreement obliges States Parties to establish a comprehensive system of ecologically representative and well-connected networks of marine protected areas in the high seas, and to take collective decisions on how selected regions of the high seas can be protected, sustainably used and managed by means of area-based management tools (ABMTs). These area-based management agreements must aim to:
- conserve and sustainably use areas of the high seas requiring protection, including through the designation of marine protected areas,
- strengthen cooperation among all States Parties, and develop the necessary management instruments and frameworks,
- protect, preserve and restore marine ecosystems and biological diversity, including strengthening their resilience to various stressors,
- support food security and other socioeconomic and cultural values and services provided by the sea, and
- build developing countries’ capacities through targeted knowledge, data and technology transfer, and ensure their equal participation in area-based management processes.
- The BBNJ Agreement must be interpreted and applied in a manner that does not undermine existing legal instruments and frameworks and relevant global, regional, subregional and sectoral bodies (e.g. the regional fisheries management organizations, RFMOs) and that promotes coherence and coordination with those instruments, frameworks and bodies.
How much impact will the BBNJ Agreement have under these circumstances? The experts are somewhat sceptical: if the States Parties to the BBNJ Agreement are not permitted to involve themselves in the work of existing bodies and are limited solely to making recommendations, the Agreement will be a paper tiger on many issues and in many regions, they say. However, the experts also point out that many States Parties to the BBNJ Agreement have long been represented in the RFMOs and other bodies, so a coordinated approach should be possible in theory.
The new Agreement also defines, for the first time, basic up-to-date requirements and standards for conducting environmental impact assessments (EIAs), i.e. the process by which planned human activities that may adversely affect biodiversity in the high seas are to undergo prior assessment and regulation. In terms of their scope, these provisions cover activities conducted in international waters, as well as activities in marine areas within national jurisdiction if it is determined that the activity may cause substantial pollution of or significant and harmful changes to the marine environment in areas beyond national jurisdiction.
It is entirely a matter for the state leading the project to decide whether a planned activity requires an environmental impact assessment. However, if that state determines that an environmental impact assessment is not required, it is obliged to justify its decision publicly and on the basis of the best available science and scientific information. For example, if a state determines that an environmental impact assessment is not required for a planned activity in the high seas for any reason, it must publish the grounds for its decision, along with all relevant background information, through the BBNJ Secretariat. Other states thus have an opportunity to register their views on the planned project.
If, by contrast, a full EIA is required under the BBNJ Agreement, the state conducting the assessment must make use of the best available science and scientific information and, where available, relevant traditional knowledge. The most significant environmental impacts must be considered, as well as the cumulative impacts of the planned activity. The state must also ensure that measures are identified to mitigate and manage potential adverse effects of the planned activities or, ideally, to prevent them entirely. States Parties are further obliged to notify the public of planned activities and ensure, in particular, that adjacent coastal states and other potentially affected states and stakeholders are consulted and participate in the environmental impact assessment process. The environmental impact assessment report and all related findings must be made available to all States Parties through the BBNJ Secretariat.
The BBNJ Agreement has many positive aspects and provisions. Will it ultimately meet the high expectations and effectively preserve and protect biodiversity in international waters? Only time will tell.
Translating countless commitments into action
At the Third United Nations Ocean Conference in the French seaport city of Nice in June 2025, there were endless calls for more effective protection of the marine environment. Government representatives from 130 countries had gathered here to develop a framework to save the seas. Transformative measures were high on the agenda – meaning action plans to initiate radical change in our use of the seas.
“Transformation” in this context was understood to include the objective of no longer solving environmental problems solely through technological or regulatory measures: it meant addressing the root causes of the problems – for example, by reforming our values and economic system. Against this background, it is not simply a matter of starting a new debate about issues of power and legitimacy in various forms of ocean use. A successful transformation of ocean governance also requires us, as a society, to radically rethink our standards and current patterns of behaviour.
- 8.11 > Delegierte lauschen einer der vielen Diskussionsrunden auf der dritten Ozeankonferenz der Vereinten Nationen, die im Juni 2025 in der französischen Hafenstadt Nizza stattfand.
- Despite the wealth of research on the transformation of ocean governance and the growing public awareness of the urgent need for effective measures, even the experts find it challenging to describe in detail the practical steps that must be taken to initiate and successfully implement the necessary process of change. There is, however, a consensus on the general outlines of future marine management. If the ocean’s ecosystems are to have a future, we must ensure that:
- we support and facilitate equitable and sustainable management of the marine environment,
- all stakeholders who use the ocean or influence its status are involved in decision-making and comply with the agreements reached,
- risks such as the impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems are taken into account in management plans,
- knowledge of the sea and marine technologies is widely shared and integrated into policymaking processes,
- adequate funding is provided for the necessary measures and structures for transformative governance.
