News Highlight
Negotiations involving 168 countries, including the European Union, to ratify a UN High Seas Treaty to protect the oceans failed because some governments could not agree to the terms.
Background
- As there is no treaty for conserving the health of a vast part of the earth’s oceans, a UN resolution in 2017 decided to rectify this while setting 2022 as the deadline.
What is the UN High Seas treaty?
- Also known as the “Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Treaty ” is an international treaty relating to the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction.
- The proposed treaty deals with the sea beyond a country’s Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) that lie from a country’s coast to about 200 nautical miles into the sea (Countries have special rights for exploration till this EEZ).
- According to IUCN, these areas account for “almost half of the Earth’s surface”.
- These areas are hardly regulated and also least understood or explored for their biodiversity – only 1% of these areas are under protection.
- The treaty is to be negotiated under the 1982 UN Convention on the Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS), which governs countries’ rights over marine resources.
How are the world’s oceans regulated as of now?
- Treaties, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), regulate the conduct of actors on the high seas.
- UNCLOS defines a distance of 12 nautical miles (approx. 22 km) from the baseline as the Territorial Sea limit and a distance of 200 nautical miles as the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) limit.
- It also created the International Seabed Authority and other conflict-resolution mechanisms.
- But a treaty dedicated to protecting ocean health does not exist.
Need for such a treaty
- Areas beyond national jurisdiction cover 95 percent of the oceans and provide significant ecological, economic, social, cultural, scientific, and food-security benefits to humanity.
- Every country has the right to access open seas, and no treaty is specifically dedicated to protecting ocean health.
- This has led to large-scale drilling and trawling operations to catch fish and other animals for commercial purposes.
- In June 2022, UN Secretary-General declared an ocean emergency at the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, citing threats to the world’s oceans.
- According to NASA’s website, 90 percent of global warming occurs in the oceans.
- Effects of ocean warming include sea level rise due to thermal expansion, bleaching of coral reefs, accelerated melting of Earth’s central ice sheets, intensified hurricanes, and changes in ocean health and biochemistry.
- According to the World Wildlife Fund, overfishing has multiplied over the years, and a third of species such as sharks and rays are threatened with extinction.
Challenges faced by the proposed treaty.
- The pandemic has caused many delays, and many issues have not been negotiated.
- A high-ambition coalition was formed and focused on the ’30×30′ targets – to save 30% of the ocean by 2030.
- More than 100 countries, including India, US and UK, are members of this alliance.
- The alliance is putting pressure on leaders to include these goals in any treaty related to high seas protection.
- The negotiating parties have not agreed on the legal nature of this Agreement.
- Many organisations, such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature, call for the treaty to be legally binding to make it more effective.
- The Caribbean countries accused the wealthy countries of the Global North of not actively participating until the final days of the talks.
- Also, the treaty faces resistance from countries that engage in mining deep sea minerals or are heavily invested in fishing.
Pic Courtesy: freepik
Content Source: Indian Express