A United Nations High Seas Treaty is nearing the point of becoming the first legally binding international agreement to safeguard marine life in international waters that cover nearly two-thirds of the ocean. The treaty will enable the creation of marine protected areas, require environmental impact assessments for any human activity in international waters, help developing island nations deal with environmental threats, and ensure equitable access to marine genetic resources. The treaty should help halt and reverse biodiversity loss, a goal of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted in December 2022 at the COP15 meeting on Biological Diversity.

The minimum national threshold of 60 for global adoption is well within reach, with the United Nations noting that 56 countries and the European Union (EU) have accepted the instrument of ratification (the individual member states still need to formally adopt the treaty’s terms), along with 143 countries indicating their commitment to ratification. Enforcement of the treaty requires a minimum 60-nation ratification threshold.

The term “High Seas” in the treaty’s name refers to 64% of the global ocean, covering almost half of the Earth, and constituting the least protected areas of the planet. The High Seas have been a lawless wilderness, leading to exploitation of the oceans’ resources without regard to conservation, with little thought about using its waters and the seabed as a garbage dump, and without consideration for those who depend on maintaining ocean biodiversity to ensure humanity’s survival.

Before this treaty, what governed the use of the ocean was contained in a 1982 Law of the Sea Convention for maritime nations, making them responsible for protecting coastal waters and the seabed out to 370 kilometres (200 nautical miles) beyond their shorelines.

What will the High Seas Treaty do?

• It will establish a legal framework and clear process for marine protected areas in the ocean beyond national maritime borders, effectively protecting and managing at least 30% of the remaining ocean waters beyond maritime limits by 2030.
• Create an environmental impact assessment process to cover ocean biodiversity, water quality and the state of the seabed, giving the international community a say in decisions regarding any new projects and existing human activities.
• Ensure a fair and equitable sharing of monetary and non-monetary benefits from marine genetic resources from the High Seas and the seabed. Marine genetic resources refer to genetic information gathered for food production, biomedical and other scientific and commercial research of marine species of plants, animals, and microbial life, with a capacity-building goal to share the results equitably with developing nations. Fair and equitable sharing also includes digital sequence information (DSI), DNA, RNA, proteins (enzymes) and organic molecules that can enhance medical and biotechnological research and support the conservation of ocean biodiversity.
• Establish a Special Fund managed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), an international body established to manage and administer funds aimed at capacity building and the transfer of marine technologies to developing nations. To date, GEF has managed and invested more than US$1.2 billion in shared marine resources within coastal and international waters, and leveraged more than $500 million in additional co-financing from other sources for projects in support of conservation and environmental sustainability. More than 100 countries have received financial support for programs and projects through GEF.

The High Seas Treaty is designed not to undermine existing organizations such as regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs), the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Seabed Authority (ISA).

The ISA recently held meetings in Kingston, Jamaica, to establish rules for deep-sea mining of the seabed. As in previous meetings, no agreement was reached despite the U.S. Trump administration giving The Metals Company (TMC), a Canadian-based miner, authorization to mine polymetallic nodules on the seabed in an area outside American waters. Known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, it lies midway between Hawai’i and Mexico’s Pacific coast in waters claimed under the Law of the Sea by Nauru and Tonga, two Pacific island nations. Both have established joint ventures with TMC. TMC had lobbied the U.S. government to get seabed mining permits as a workaround for the lack of consensus by the ISA in establishing governing rules.

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