The High Seas Treaty

Last Updated24/03/2023

Recently, every country in the world finalised a new global treaty meant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological resources in the high seas.
The treaty is commonly known as the agreement on “biodiversity beyond national jurisdictions”, or BBNJ.
Once the treaty becomes international law after ratification by member countries, it will regulate all human activities in the high seas with the objective of ensuring that ocean resources, including biodiversity, are utilised in a sustainable manner, and their benefits are shared equitably among countries.

The high seas comprise 64% of the ocean surface, and about 43% of the Earth.
According to the Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative (DOSI), these areas are home to about 2.2 million marine species and up to a trillion different kinds of microorganisms.
A number of regional, multilateral and global legal frameworks exist to govern the activities in the oceans, the most important of which is the United Nations Convention on the Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS), a 1982 agreement that has near-universal acceptance.

The High Seas Treaty has four main objectives:
Demarcation of marine protected areas (MPAs), rather like there are protected forests or wildlife areas;
Sustainable use of marine genetic resources and equitable sharing of benefits arising from them;
Initiation of the practice of environmental impact assessments for all major activities in the oceans; and
Capacity building and technology transfer.

MPAs are where ocean systems, including biodiversity, are under stress, either due to human activities or climate change. These can be called the national parks or wildlife reserves of the oceans.
Activities in these areas will be highly regulated, and conservation efforts similar to what happens in forest or wildlife zones, will be undertaken.
In December last year, at the meeting of the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) in Montreal, Canada, countries had agreed to put at least 30 per cent of degraded coastal and marine ecosystems under effective restoration by 2030.

The high seas are international waters that are open for use by all countries.
Under the provisions of the new treaty, commercial or other activities that can have significant impact on the marine ecosystem, or can cause large-scale pollution in the oceans, would require an environmental impact assessment to be done, and the results of this exercise have to be shared with the international community.

Since a large number of countries, especially small island states and landlocked nations, do not have the resources or the expertise to meaningfully participate in the conservation efforts, or to take benefits from the useful exploitation of marine resources.
At the same time, the obligations put on them by the Treaty, to carry out environmental impact assessments for example, can be an additional burden.

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All the major contentious provisions, including environmental impact assessments, sharing of benefits from genetic resources, and mobilisation of funds for conservation activities, are still to be worked out.
Many issues remain unaddressed, including the mechanisms for policing the protected areas, the fate of the projects that are assessed to be heavily polluting, and the resolution of disputes.
The process of ratification is not expected to be easy. It took UNCLOS 12 years to become international law because the necessary number of ratifications was not reached.
The Kyoto Protocol, the precursor to the Paris Agreement, also took eight years to come into effect.
Therefore, It is need of hour that global community should come together for the implementation of the treaty which is essential for the conservation and protection of environment and ecosystem.