After almost two decades of negotiations, UN member states have agreed on a multilateral treaty framework aimed at protecting our global commons through the establishment of vast marine protected areas in the high seas, among other ocean preservation measures.

This new treaty is a significant victory for multilateralism and meaningful international cooperation, as it addresses a range of global issues of shared concern, such as the protection of global ocean health, ocean climate resilience, and the socioeconomic wellbeing and food security of billions of people who rely on ocean resources. The treaty establishes that binding legal standards must apply to areas beyond national jurisdiction and aims to establish long-term patterns of behaviour concerning the use of marine genetic resources, environmental impact assessments for deep sea activities, capacity building, and the development and transfer of marine technology.

This treaty shows that in a world divided by many issues, multilateralism and cooperation offer the best hope to balance shared and common interests, to mediate cultural diversity, and manage future conflicts. The treaty establishes a Scientific and Technical Body and a Conference of the Parties to oversee and facilitate its effective and equitable implementation. Additionally, it incorporates a robust mechanism for the peaceful settlement of disputes arising from the interpretation or application of the treaty.

The treaty text was adopted by consensus by all 193 UN member states. The text will now be translated into the official languages of the UN and made available for adoption. The next step is for each state to sign the treaty according to its own domestic law requirements. The agreement will enter into force once 60 states have signed up to it.

While I welcome the news today that the “Oceans Treaty” has been agreed to by the BBN I have concerns that the “30% of the worlds oceans into protected areas” may allow extractive activities under the banner of “sustainable use”.  Only “no take” marine Sanctuaries that prohibit extraction of any kind are effective in conserving ocean biodiversity, and the Treaty must specify 30% no take marine parks

Agreement on the High Seas Treaty is a significant outcome as over 60% of the world’s ocean is considered within international waters beyond national jurisdiction. These ocean waters have an important role in regulating climate systems but also ocean health is inextricably linked to global food security.

Establishing a network of large scale marine protected areas within the high seas can provide an effective mechanism for safeguarding marine biodiversity.

The challenge will be in determining indicators for achieving marine protection, how these large scale marine protected areas will be monitored and how progress towards these targets will be assessed.

This treaty is an important step forward for the protection of ocean biodiversity. However, its ratification will take some time.

Once in force, it will be particularly important as mining companies are increasing their efforts to access minerals under the deep seabed.
 
Currently, data provided by mining companies to the International Seabed Authority on the environmental impact caused by their deep-sea mining is very limited.
 
We hope that the treaty will force change to increase transparency and help protect marine biodiversity in the deep ocean.

The new High Seas Treaty is the work of nearly twenty years of eye-wateringly slow discussion about the blindingly obvious need for better mechanisms to protect, assess, and sustainably use the half of the planet beyond the control of any one country.

The new treaty provides ground rules for how the high seas can be protected, and how we will assess the environmental impact of activities there. Possibly most importantly, it articulates a new regime for access and benefits sharing of marine genetic resources, which have already been used to develop extremely lucrative pharmaceuticals by corporations and countries who can afford to access these deep and distant areas.

There’s been particular focus on how the new High Seas Treaty will impact our collective ability to meet the goal of protecting 30% of the planet by 2030. Without this new treaty, the 30x30 goal would have been a fantasy. Before this treaty, there was no global mechanism to allow countries to create marine protected areas in the high seas, essentially removing nearly half of the planet from the protection equation. While this treaty does not protect any part of the high seas today, it provides the means for doing so and opens the door to achieving 30x30.

Oceans support almost every aspect of human life, from the oxygen we breathe and the trade routes we ply, to the sense of belonging we draw from walking along our favourite beach. But our ocean waters are warmer and more acidic than they have been for thousands to millions of years, and we are making them warmer and more acidic by the day.

At the same time, our growing populations demand ever-more food from the planet’s natural ecosystems, and ever-more minerals with which to build the technological devices that have become central to our daily lives. With climate change, unsustainable fishing and deep-sea mining posing increasing threats to the oceans and the plants and animals that live in them, any news of increased protection should be welcomed, and the UN High Seas treaty is no exception.
 
More than two thirds of the planet is covered by ocean, and around 60% of these oceans lie in the “high seas”—waters beyond national jurisdiction. This new agreement to protect 30% of the high seas therefore really only intends to protect around one fifth of the ocean.

That’s less protection than it might initially seem, but it’s better than the 9% or so of the world’s coastal waters that are protected—and it is in these coastal waters that we have the strongest evidence of the damage we are causing.

So why not a treaty to protect 30% of ALL ocean waters? More worryingly, as with coastal waters, the UN Treaty’s version of 'protection' seems to somehow have a blind spot when it comes to damaging practices like fishing, which are not automatically excluded. Making things worse, yet, while agreement has been reached on the Treaty, it has not yet been formally adopted—and there will be plenty of political interests seeking concessions ahead of this step.

Then, finally, there is the question of enforcement—who polices waters beyond national jurisdiction, and how?
 
This is a good start, but we have a long way to go. As a global society, we can and must do better

Protecting areas of ocean is extremely important and desperately needed, but it won’t solve any problems on its own.

At the same time, we also need to be innovating around changing the processes that are causing the damage in the first place, including global stressors that are leading to increased warming and acidification and local stressors, such as overfishing and other extractive and damaging activities

The High Seas Treaty agreement is a major achievement for the health of our planet. Its implementation will be very challenging—not just on a political or legal level. I am thinking of scientific and engineering challenges.

The vastness and remoteness of the High Seas make their monitoring very difficult. How do you protect their biodiversity if you don’t even know half of the life that is out there? How do you develop the High Seas in a sustainable way if you don’t understand the interactions of future (industrial / resource) development with marine life? And how can you monitor your targets and goals for marine biodiversity in these vast and remote locations?

We will need novel remote sensing tools to monitor marine life, industrial development, and potential interactions. Such tools will likely be based on, inter alia, satellite remote sensing, in situ ocean sensors, environmental DNA, and passive acoustics—in combination, as each adds unique value. My own expertise is the latter, passive acoustics, which involves the installation of hydrophones in the ocean, with natural listening ranges of hundreds to thousands of miles.

The agreement to protect 30% of the high seas is the most important step towards securing not only a future for our oceans but a future for our planet. It is an unprecedented milestone in marine conservation.

The high seas have been subject to unregulated resource extraction, mostly fisheries, for many decades causing increasing impacts on migratory species such as whales. As the world's oceans are under pressure from global change including pollution, fisheries and climate change, protecting at least 30% will help to reduce some of these impacts and secure marine biodiversity for coming generations.

Whales and other marine life are already forced to adapt to current changes with the need to extend their home range and habitats to new areas. The better we can protect such areas, the better are our chances to save whales and other marine life from extinction. We must remain vigilant on how the agreement will be implemented and enforced as this will determine its success for marine biodiversity protection. 

Planet earth is a blue planet, defined by the oceans, its water and marine lifeforms. We must protect the oceans and in particular the high seas. I strongly welcome the high seas treaty.

It is very pleasing to see a treaty finally concluded to protect high seas biodiversity and to provide a framework for sharing access to and the benefits from high seas marine genetic resources.

With the exception of some fisheries treaties, the high seas have not been adequately protected by international law.
 
This new BBNJ agreement goes a substantial way towards addressing the gap in ocean governance, however it will require wide support from states and full implementation if it is to deliver on its goals.
 
This is the third implementing agreement under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and has required lengthy negotiations that were heavily disrupted by the COVID pandemic.