No international treaty ready to be ratified, but no renunciation either of agreeing between States on how to preserve ocean biodiversity in the high seas. If the fourth – and theoretically last – intergovernmental conference on the high seas, which ended Friday, March 18 in New York, does not end with anything definitive, it nevertheless ends on an optimistic note. “These are long, technical discussions, but they go well, relates Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, French ambassador for the poles and maritime issues. There is no blockage despite the current geopolitical context. A fifth session should probably take place this summer, it will be conclusive before the end of 2022.”
These two weeks of negotiations are even more like a new start, since they gave rise to real debates between diplomats, to technical exchanges, sketches of compromises and strategic partnerships, rather than to simple solemn declarations from States opposed or in favor of adding an environmental component to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
This fundamental text, signed in 1982, contains almost nothing on this chapter. For the UN, it was time to remedy this, both because awareness of the importance of the marine world for life on this planet is progressing, but also because this gigantic part of the ocean, located beyond the areas under the jurisdiction of coastal countries, is increasingly frequented. Maritime transport, fishing, laying of submarine cables, scientific research, exploration of the deep sea, activities are multiplying there. But without legal rules protecting marine life, which turns out to be more intense than we imagined a few decades ago.
“Accelerate work”
The UN has therefore been discussing it since… 2006 and ended up starting a round of negotiations in 2018, which the Covid-19 came to slow down. The future international treaty must take the form of a binding legal tool based on four pillars. For the preservation of biodiversity, it is a question of defining “area management tools”, in particular marine protected areas on the high seas, and to establish the obligation to carry out environmental impact studies for all work above a threshold that remains to be defined. The second side responds to a completely different ambition: that of a “sustainable use of marine biodiversity”, in other words to organize themselves in order to take advantage of the riches of this common heritage in the future. As developing countries do not have the same means of achieving this as richer countries, it is said that the exploitation of genetic resources should give rise to a sharing of benefits, and that aid for ” Capacity Building “ in the field of science and the transfer of marine technologies should be considered.
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