International Law And Marine Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction

This book investigates competing constructions of areas beyond national jurisdiction, and their role in the creation and articulations of legal principles, providing a broader perspective on the ongoing negotiation at the UN on marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction.

Marine Biodiversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) identifies the major issues at stake in the BBNJ negotiations and examines the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction. This timely volume offers cutting edge contributions from leading global experts on access and benefit sharing of marine genetic resources; environmental impact assessments; capacity building and transfer of technology as well as Arctic environmental issues including security and shipping. Cross-cutting themes including the potential impact on existing legal frameworks and instruments are also explored.

This book provides a blueprint for an International Legally Binding Instrument (ILBI) for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ). The development of an ILBI could signify a pivotal turning point in the law of the sea by addressing regulatory, governance and institutional gaps and deficiencies in the existing international law framework for BBNJ. This book analyses the essential components an ILBI will require to effectively conserve and sustainably use BBNJ, focusing on marine genetic resources, areabased management tools, environmental impact assessments, capacity-building and marine technology transfer. It investigates potential areas of compromise, as the success of an ILBI will rely upon the support of a powerful bloc of maritime States, principally the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, the Netherlands, France and Japan. The participation of major maritime powers will be critical as it is their nationals, corporations and flag vessels that have the financial and technical wherewithal to undertake activities beyond national jurisdiction. This bloc of States has historically been the strongest proponent of the Grotian doctrine of ‘freedom of the seas’ as it aligns with their predominant interest to preserve navigational freedom for their merchant and military fleets. Accordingly, this book assesses the extent to which the Grotian doctrine continues to exert influence on the development of the law of the sea and the development of an ILBI. Providing a comprehensive overview of this important development in international law, this book will be of interest to students, lecturers and academics of law of the sea, international environmental law and biodiversity law.

This work intends to contribute to a better understanding of the international law aspects of the ongoing debate on current and future international governance and regulation of areas beyond national jurisdiction, focusing on principles and objectives, institutional arrangements, entitlements and compliance.

Marine Protected Areas in International Law – an Arctic perspective by Ingvild Ulrikke Jakobsen, examines the legal rights and obligations of states under international law using Marine Protected Areas to protect marine biodiversity, with a particular emphasis on the Arctic region.

The International Legal Regime Relating to Marine Protected Areas in Areas beyond National Jurisdiction identifies the ‘participatory’, ‘competence’ and ‘geographical’ gaps in the international legal regime relating to marine protected areas (MPAs) in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) and provides insight into how to address these gaps. The book concludes that the gaps can be addressed only to a limited extent under the current international legal framework; however, the prospective international legally binding instrument (ILBI) on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) might well make further contributions.

This volume examines the threats to the marine environment beyond national jurisdiction from existing and emerging human uses and the adequacy of current international law provisions to protect this major part of the global environment.

"The inspiration for this book comes from negotiations that are taking place under the auspices of the United Nations by an intergovernmental conference for a new International Legally Binding Instrument (ILBI) under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ). The proposed ILBI is attempting to fill existing gaps under international law over marine biodiversity and marine genetic resources (MGR) in ABNJ. One way it is attempting to do this is by having an Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) schema over these resources in ABNJ that the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its Nagoya Protocol (NP) do not currently cover. These existing frameworks that regulate genetic resources are grounded in the notion of sovereignty. Effectively, States have sovereign rights over their biological resources. The ILBI, however, is attempting to regulate marine biodiversity and MGR in ABNJ. Thus, the notion that negotiators representing nation States under the auspices of the United Nations can regulate ABNJ is paradoxical - are these areas beyond nation States' jurisdiction or not? Implicitly, the negotiators are acting as though they have sovereignty over resources located in what has been historically a sovereign-free space. Thus, the purpose of this book is to investigates this paradox. Essentially, this book critiques the notion that ABNJ can actually be regulated under the auspices of the United Nations by nation-State negotiators"--