Environment

UN to adopt first treaty to protect biodiversity in high seas

June 4, 2023June 5, 2023

By David Pendered

June 4 – The United Nations remains on track to formally adopt this month an historic treaty to protect oceans around the world.

The treaty represents the UN’s first-ever attempt to establish an international agreement to safeguard biodiversity in the high seas, the term for the unregulated sections of the world’s oceans that exist beyond nations’ economic exclusion zones, which begin at 200 miles offshore, and thus the control of any one government.

The UN is expected to adopt this month the world’s first treaty to protect biodiveristy on the high seas, which begin at 200 miles from land. Credit: By Kvasir at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19867384

If approved as expected by the UN at a meeting June 19-20, the measure moves to member countries for consideration. Sixty member countries must ratify the document for it to take effect. In the United States, the Senate is the body that is to consider ratification.

The UN has been discussing a high seas treaty for nearly 15 years. The current round of talks date to 2015, according to the UN’s March 4 resolution setting the dates of the treaty deliberation.

The treaty’s purpose is to provide a legal framework to protect biodiversity in the vast expanses of the world’s oceans that are beyond the control of any one government.

One example of an area that could benefit from such protections is the migratory route of whales in the Pacific Ocean. The pathway was documented in an effort led by the Swiss-based World Wildlife Fund for Nature in the 2022 report, Blue Corridors of the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

The Pew Charitable Trusts, a Washington-based non-profit NGO that favors the UN proposal, contends the treaty aims to address:

“Illegal fishing, overfishing, new and emerging activities such as geoengineering, and climate change are among the many threats to high seas marine life.”

The UN’s draft decision describes the treaty as establishing a legal framework for the:

“conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction.”

More than 190 countries reached agreement on the treaty March 4. Not all countries appear to be in full agreement with terms, but the measure gained approval. As the UN noted in a statement issued at the start of the international conference, “some delegations expressed concern that discussions have gone beyond the Conference’s scope or are not adequately addressing the needs of geographically and economically vulnerable groups of countries.” Another issue was to stipulate use of “humankind” rather than “mankind.”

In the United States, the measure arrives as the nation remains polarized over matters related to environmental regulation and climate change.

The Biden administration has fully endorsed the high seas treaty. After the UN ratified the proposal, Monica Medina, assistant secretary of state for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs at the U.S. State Department, sent two tweets:

“Today the world came together to protect the ocean for the benefit of our children and grandchildren. We leave here with the ability to create protected areas in the high seas and achieve the ambitious goal of conserving 30 percent of the ocean by 2030.
“And the time to start is now.”

The U.S. Supreme Court, meanwhile, has issued rulings that that have curbed EPA rules related to power plant emissions and wetlands regulations. The court reduced the EPA’s rule-making authority in the 2022 ruling in West Virginia v. EPA and also in May in Sackett v. EPA.