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Oceans and Seas

Why the UN Pact on High Seas Biodiversity Is Too Important to Fail

The UN Pact on High Seas Biodiversity represents a long-overdue acknowledgment that the fate of the ocean will help determine our own. But success will require reconciling the divergent interests of multiple constituencies.

Coral surrounds a small island on the Great Barrier Reef near Rockhampton, Australia on November 15, 2018. David Gray/Reuters

By experts and staff

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  • Stewart M. Patrick
    James H. Binger Senior Fellow in Global Governance and Director of the International Institutions and Global Governance Program

In my weekly column for World Politics Review, I examine four major topics that will be on the table at next month’s negotiating session on the UN Pact on High Seas Biodiversity. 

Quietly but steadily, the most important environmental treaty that most people have never heard of is taking shape. Late last month, a United Nations committee released the draft text of a new, legally binding international convention to protect the “marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction.” The so-called BBNJ treaty will promote the “conservation and sustainable use” of marine resources and living organisms in the high seas, an expanse encompassing 50 percent of the planet’s surface and all the water below.

Read the full World Politics Review article here.