The world’s first international treaty to protect the high seas was adopted at the United Nations on Monday 19th June. The commonly referred to ‘High Seas Treaty’, or more fully the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ / ABNJ), is the legal framework that aims to ensure the conservation and […]
After more than 15 years of formal and informal talks, this is the third time in less than a year that negotiators have converged on New York in what, yet again, is supposed to be a final and conclusive round of negotiations aimed at reaching a treaty to protect vast areas of the world’s ocean. […]
Failure in efforts to create global ocean treaty A fifth effort to pass a global agreement to protect the world’s oceans and marine life has failed. Numerous news outlets, including the BBC, reported that talks to pass the UN High Seas Treaty had been ongoing for two weeks in New York, but governments could not agree […]
The United Nations failed to finalise a landmark treaty to preserve the biodiversity of the high seas – the 60% of the ocean beyond any nation’s jurisdiction. Observers, though, expect an agreement to be reached by year’s end as pressure builds to protect marine life from the growing impacts of climate change, overfishing and pollution, reports Bloomberg. The two-week meeting […]
The fourth session of the Intergovernmental Conference on Sustainable Use of Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (also known as the BBNJ or High Seas Treaty), begins this week and runs to 18 March at the UN in New York. The UK Prime Minister announced in February that the country will be joining the High Ambition Coalition on […]
On June 5, Blue Marine Foundation (BLUE) brought together over a hundred delegates to discuss how to secure an ambitious global deal to protect nature in the high seas. Held in the historic Navy Board Rooms in Somerset House, the event fell between the second and third BBNJ (Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction) negotiations at the […]