The new High Seas Treaty, set to be adopted by the United Nations today, Philippine time, contains landmark tools for the conservation and management of international waters.
It stipulates that environmental impact assessments must be completed before any new exploitation of marine resources in areas beyond national jurisdictions.
It also features provisions to allow for the equitable sharing of knowledge, technologies and benefits from marine genetic resources.
Experts are agreed that almost two-thirds of the planet’s surface is ocean and the seas make up 95 percent of the Earth’s total habitat by volume.
But, only 1 percent of the high seas has, up until now, been under any protection protocol and just 39 percent of the ocean falls under the national jurisdiction of individual countries.
After years of negotiations, Member States of the United Nations have agreed on the High Seas Treaty to protect oceans of the world that lie outside national borders, which cover round 69 percent of the world’s oceans, ensuring the protection and sustainable use of marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction.
Interesting to note that the first international agreement to protect the world’s oceans aims to create “international parks” in the high seas.
The United Nations High Seas Treaty is a legally binding instrument on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction.
Experts have said ocean ecosystems create half the oxygen humans breathe and limit global warming by absorbing much of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities.
Once adopted today, the UN treaty will go into force 120 days after 60 countries have ratified it.
In March this year, the president of the final Session of the Intergovernmental Conference on an agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea aptly said “the ship has reached the shore.”
Ambassador Antonio Lagdameo, Philippine Permanent Representative to the United Nations, lauded the conclusion of the negotiations.
“As an archipelagic state situated in the center of marine biodiversity, the Philippines places high importance in the BBNJ Agreement, which sets a framework for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction; the sharing of benefits of marine genetic resources; and enhanced international cooperation,” he said.
The High Seas Treaty, as the BBNJ (Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction) is alternatively referred to, is a legally binding instrument under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
It provides a strong overall policy framework for the oceans, which to date have suffered from a siloed approach to ocean management and significant under-funding.
Lagdameo said: “This is a milestone in the global efforts to address the unprecedented pressures facing the world’s oceans.
“The early ratification, entry into force, and effective implementation of the BBNJ Agreement should be a priority.”
