On March 4, 2023, over 190 countries, including the United States, agreed to an international agreement about marine protected areas in international waters. The agreement is the product of years of negotiations by the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), of which the United States is a member. The agreement, referred to informally as the “High Seas Treaty,” builds off several other agreements and conventions already in place. Primarily, the agreement is an evolution of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a treaty adopted in 1982 that currently has 157 state parties. The United States has not ratified this treaty.
Although the United States is not a party to UNCLOS, the U.S. Department of State has signaled its intent to sign the new agreement on marine protected areas. The High Seas Treaty is a part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), an initiative agreed upon by all U.N. member states aimed at achieving 17 goals related to eradicating poverty and hunger, protecting the environment, and securing human rights. The goals were adopted by the U.N. in 2015 with a 15-year implementation plan, known as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The High Seas Treaty is designed to “ensure the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction.” (High Seas Treaty art. 2.) The treaty focuses heavily on international cooperation related to technology and resource sharing to ensure that developing countries can meet the demands of the agreement. For example, article 43 of the treaty provides that the sharing of technology to developing states must be managed in an efficient and effective manner and must not place unreachable requirements on developing countries.
The agreement also introduces a new Conference of the Parties (COP) that is required to meet within the first year of the entry into force of the High Seas Treaty. (Art. 48.) The COP is authorized to implement the terms of the agreement through a variety of tools and to seek advice from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) on questions of law related to international law of the seas. ITLOS is an independent tribunal established by UNCLOS.
Relevant to the United States’ intent to sign the treaty are contemporaneous pledges made by the United States at the 2023 Our Ocean Conference in Panama. The United States pledged $6 billion in ocean-related funding. Of that, $800 million has been set aside for ocean protection and assisting developing countries in meeting the objectives and initiatives from the conference, including supporting the creation of marine protected areas, helping countries secure marine resources, and improving the resilience of coastal areas to climate change.
Louis Myers, Law Library of Congress
April 3, 2023
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