The first real international treaty on the High Seas within reach?

• An exclusive economic zone (EEZ) can extend up to 200 nautical miles from the coast of a country that has the rights.

  Then begins the high seas, this immensity which escapes national jurisdictions.

• Long difficult to access and considered unworthy of interest, the high seas are now arousing growing appetites, in particular because of the genetic and mining resources they contain.

• Since the early 2000s, the idea of ​​protecting the high seas through a new international agreement has gained ground.

  Official negotiations began in 2018 within the UN.

  They could conclude in New York these days.

200 nautical miles (370 km) from the coast begins the High Seas. An immensity which covers 60% of the seas and oceans of the globe and does not depend on any national jurisdiction.

This is its whole paradox: to belong at the same time to everyone and to no one.

What make it vulnerable to the growing appetites it arouses.

To correct the situation, on December 24, 2017, during its general assembly, the United Nations voted to open formal negotiations on a future binding treaty on "the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity" in the High Seas. little more than four years later, we could reach the goal as the fourth round of negotiations around this future treaty opens on Monday, and until March 18.

The last in theory...

Why do we need this treaty?

What will be the pillars?

Will we need a fifth round? 

takes stock.

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Why a specific treaty on the High Seas?

After all, one could say that there is already the International Convention on the Law of the Sea, concluded in Montego Bay (Jamaica) in 1982. "A monument of international law, still in force and which is presented as a Constitution for the ocean, describes Julien Rochette, director of the Ocean program of the Institute for sustainable development and international relations (Iddri), think-tank on environmental issues.

It lays down provisions and general principles to ensure the peaceful and sustainable management of the oceans, in particular on maritime delimitations.

Thus, in 1982, the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) came into being, this strip of sea or ocean which can extend up to 200 nautical miles from the coasts of a neighboring country and on which it has exclusive exploitation of resources.

Beyond, therefore, we switch to the High Seas. A territory on which this 1982 Convention does not precisely say much, "and which in any case acts on a certain number of principles of freedom (of fishing, scientific research …)”, adds Julien Rochette.

To explain it, the researcher invites us to immerse ourselves in the context of 1982 and the ten years of negotiations that preceded it.

"At the time, we knew nothing about biodiversity in the High Seas, we even assumed that the deep seabed was nothing but vast deserts," he recalls.

Moreover, the technologies did not make it easy to go to the high seas, and even less to exploit these resources.

“A context that has changed completely now.

What does this future treaty on the High Seas provide?

If the negotiations are still in progress, the content of the text is already known in its main points.

The first is to provide a mechanism for the creation of marine protected areas in the High Seas, "when they can only be protected today in the EEZs", explains François Chartier, campaign manager for "oceans and oil" at Greenpeace France. .

"Filling this legal void is crucial as the objective of protecting 30% of the seas and lands by 2030 will be at the heart of the discussions at the COP15 "biodiversity" in Kunming (China) in a few weeks, explains- he.

Without being able to create protected areas in the High Seas, it will simply be impossible.

»

This is the first pillar of this future treaty, a non-negotiable point for several powers, including the EU.

The developing countries, gathered within the G77, put forward two others.

First, capacity building and the transfer of marine technologies between States.

"Clearly, the countries of the South want to be helped to ensure the new obligations created by this treaty, when they are already not always able to do so in their coastal waters", details Julien Rochette.

The second request concerns maritime genetic resources, which lead to seeing the High Seas as the reservoir of tomorrow's drugs.

“These resources are now freely available.

So much so that the G77 fears that the countries of the North, already armed to exploit them, will be the only ones to benefit from them, continues the researcher from IDDRI.

He then asks, from now on,

a benefit-sharing mechanism.

There is a fourth and final pillar to this treaty, pushed in particular by the EU: that of environmental impact studies.

"The idea is to have safeguards when today, many economic activities can be carried out in the High Seas without any assessment of their impacts or prior authorizations", indicates Julien Rochette.

Are issues set aside?

François Chartier cites at least two "which will be likely to pose a problem": fishing, but also the mining of the seabed, while more and more States and private companies are thinking of seeking them from several thousands of meters under the sea. “It was considered that regulatory bodies already existed for these two activities,” he says.

These are the regional fisheries organizations or the International Seabed Authority (AIFM) for the exploitation of the seabed.

“But, until now, these organizations have mainly defended the interests of industrialists, notes the Greenpeace campaigner, who is already imagining future telescoping between these interests and the creation of marine protected areas in the High Seas.

How can we also avoid sticking to simple “paper protected areas”?

The expression describes marine areas closer to our coasts and therefore, in principle, easier to enforce.

So in the High Seas… “There has been little thought given to this question of the monitoring and financing of these future protected areas”, we say to IDDRI.

"But this treaty can't solve everything either," says Julien Rochette.

The idea is to establish a set of general principles and then to work over time on the methods of application.

This is also another fundamental issue of this future treaty: that of its governance.

Will it provide, for example, annual COPs as there are on climate and biodiversity?

Will this fourth round be the last?

The first three rounds went on without much respite, between September 2018 and September 2019, before the Covid 19 pandemic imposed a break of almost two and a half years.

To relaunch a positive dynamic, the One ocean summit, organized in mid-February in Brest, resulted in the launch of a “coalition of high ambition for the High Seas”.

Forty states – the 27 of the EU and 13 others – are calling for negotiations on an ambitious treaty to be concluded this year.

“This coalition has the merit of making the countries that are pushing for this treaty more visible, but it has not made it possible to rally new states that were not already there in the past,” observes François Chartier.

The Greenpeace campaign manager, like Julien Rochette, then points to the many passages in brackets in the text, which are all points of negotiations still in progress.

Like other observers, they do not believe much in the finalization of this treaty by the end of this fourth round, on March 18.

Even “this high-ambition coalition” finally implicitly admits it, calling for a conclusion by the end of the year.

That leaves the door open for a fifth round…at least.

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