INDIA TO RATIFY UN HIGH SEAS TREATY
The Indian government on Monday said it would soon sign and ratify the High Seas Treaty, a new international legal architecture for maintaining the ecological health of the oceans.
The treaty, negotiated last year, is meant for reducing pollution, and for conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and other marine resources in ocean waters.
WHAT ARE HIGH SEAS?
High seas are areas outside the national jurisdiction of any country because of which the treaty is also known as the agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdictions (BBNJ). It is formally called the Agreement on Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction.
India, like most other nations, was a party to the nearly 15 years of negotiation that resulted in the finalisation of the treaty last year. As such, the decision to sign and ratify the treaty is not unexpected.
HOW MANY COUNTRIES HAVE SIGNED THE TREATY?
91 countries have already signed the treaty, while eight of them have also ratified It.
UN HIGH SEAS TREATY
- 91 nations signed the document, officially known as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Treaty, after agreeing to its terms in March, 2023 following roughly 15 years of discussion.
- The treaty is meant “to prevent a cascading of species extinctions” brought on by overfishing, oil extraction, deep-sea mining and other activities with environmental impacts that occur in the high seas.
ABOUT THE TREATY
- It is the first-ever treaty to protect the world’s oceans that lie outside National boundaries.
- It is also known as the ‘Paris Agreement for the Ocean.’
- It is a legally binding treaty that aims at protecting, caring for, and ensuring the responsible use of the marine environment, maintaining the integrity of ocean ecosystems, and conserving the inherent value of marine biological diversity.
- The treaty is built on the legacy of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which is the last international agreement on ocean protection, signed 40 years ago in 1982. UNCLOS established an area called the high seas.
HIGHLIGHTS
- It aims to place 30% of the seas into protected areas by 2030(a pledge made by countries at the UN biodiversity conference in 2022).
- It will provide a legal framework for establishing vast marine protected areas (MPAs) to protect against the loss of wildlife and share out the genetic resources of the high seas.
- It also covers environmental assessments to evaluate the potential damage of commercial activities, such as deep-sea mining.
- The treaty aims at strengthening resilience and contains provisions based on the polluter-pays principle as well as mechanisms for disputes.
- The treaty offers guidance, including through an integrated approach to ocean management that builds ecosystem resilience to tackle the adverse effects of climate change and ocean acidification, and maintains and restores ecosystem integrity, including carbon cycling services.
- Treaty provisions also recognize the rights and traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples and local communities, the freedom of scientific research, and need for the fair and equitable sharing of benefits.
- The treaty also considers the special circumstances facing small-island and landlocked developing nations.
- It will establish a conference of the parties (CoP) that will meet periodically and enable member states to be held to account on issues such as governance and biodiversity.
- The treaty also includes a pledge by signatories to share ocean resources.
NEED FOR THE UN HIGH SEAS TREATY
- Ocean and biodiversity
- The high seas comprise 64 per cent of the ocean surface, and about 43 per cent of the Earth.
- These areas are home to about 2.2 million marine species and up to a trillion different kinds of microorganisms.
- Ocean and global climate
- Oceans are an integral part of the global climate cycle, and perform a range of ecological services including absorption of carbon dioxide and Excess heat.
- Hence, this treaty is being considered as a landmark in the efforts to keep the planet habitable.
- Unregulated human activities
- Climate change is already influencing, and is being influenced by, ocean systems, and is exacerbating the pressures on marine biodiversity from unregulated human activities.
- It is these specific challenges — a combination of climate change, biodiversity, and pollution — that the High Seas Treaty seeks to address.
- UNCLOS and concerns regarding the biodiversity
- Though UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) asks countries to protect the ocean ecology and conserve its resources, it does not provide the specific mechanisms or processes to do so.
- Hence, it is believed that the High Seas Treaty will work as an implementation agreement under the UNCLOS.
- This is similar to the Paris Agreement working under the UN framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
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