Statement on the signing of the United Nations Treaty on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction
The People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty welcomed the signing of a landmark agreement to regulate the use and conservation of marine biodiversity on the high seas. The Global South-led movement also issued a challenge to the implementing body and states to “deliver the missing half” to guarantee its implementation in good faith.
On March 4, almost two hundred nations reached consensus on the final language of the international legally binding instrument known as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction, or BBNJ, defining legal obligations to safeguard an area comprising two thirds of the ocean and almost half of the earth.
“It’s a big step forward towards coordinated and urgent climate action on a global scale. Recognizing the importance of indigenous people’s engagement and including funds for developing nations’ capacity building are excellent initial steps in anchoring these conservation efforts in a framework of justice and equity,” Razan Zuayter, PCFS Co-Chairperson, said.
A part of the United Nations’ Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the BBNJ treaty contains four major parts:
- equitable access and benefit sharing of Marine Genetic Resources (MGR),
- Area management tools including marine protected areas,
- detailed commitments to Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA), and
- commitment to technology and knowledge transfer to developing nations and relevant IP communities
With these, the agreement aims to operationalize the commitment to protect at least 30 percent of the oceans by 2030, as enshrined in the Global Biodiversity Framework signed last December in Montreal, Canada.
When BBNJ enters into force, it will provide a binding framework of global action to restore the integrity and biodiversity of the oceans, improve ecosystems’ resilience to climate change and ocean acidification, and regulate extractive activities and pollution in the high seas. This will happen once at least 60 states ratify the agreement at the national level.
Additionally, the Coalition asserts that signing the agreement is just half the battle. “As States sign the High Seas Treaty and the Scientific and Technical Body sets up plans to execute it, we must stress the need to concentrate its programs towards climate justice and facilitating the participation of rural peoples in coastal nations of the Global South.”
Much needed regulation
The oceans absorb at least a quarter of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and 90% of the surplus heat produced by human activities. Yet the UN High Seas Convention is the first enforceable agreement that includes the regulation of the high seas, beyond exclusive economic zones (EEZs).
PCFS stressed that peoples of the Global South bear the brunt of biodiversity loss and extreme weather events caused by historical emissions of industrial countries in the Global North.
“It’s a Wild Wild West out there in the high seas, big subsidizers continue to deplete fish stocks while existing rules, like the WTO’s, are only enforced against small fishermen in national waters,” Zuayter said.
Last year, PCFS and small fisherfolk groups and partners released a paper highlighting the negative effects of TNC-led ocean conservation measures such as the World Trade Organization’s anti-overfishing rules. In the high seas, subsidized fleets from China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Spain alone account for 86 percent of total fishing effort.
According to PCFS, the BBNJ’s support for participatory EIAs that incorporate long-term impacts can help concretize action toward having industrial nations of the Global North pay for the Global South’s climate-related loss and damage.
Put an end to genetic theft and patenting
“While it’s a disappointment that the agreement perpetuates the practice that genetic resources can be patented, it’s still an important step in shedding light on genetic theft and patenting being done by corporations like BASF in the past decade.”
The “access and benefit-sharing” (ABS) of genetic materials and ocean resources is one of the most contentious issues in the BBNJ’s decades-long negotiations. According to the most recent data, over 84 percent of patents on marine genetic resources on the high seas are owned by multinational corporations. At least 43 percent of these patents are owned by the agrochemical giant BASF.
In actuality, businesses and organizations from three nations—Germany, the United States, and Japan—own over 76% of these patents.
While the BBNJ agreement does not specify regulation of already commercialized patents, it puts in place more stringent rules on the patenting and commercialization of MGRs. In addition, it defended the precautionary principle and physical integrity preservation, both of which discourage potentially dangerous gene-based profiteering.
“Patenting life has only benefitted a handful of TNCs from rich nations, and this practice has considerably contributed to global biodiversity loss, unaffordable and unhealthy food, and loss of livelihood for farmers in the Global South,” PCFS adds.
Historically, protective legislation for biotechnology has given American, European, and Chinese multinational corporations monopolies on the global seed, fertilizer, and food supply chains. Mounting evidence suggests that the existence of these monopolies accounts for the extinction of 93% of indigenous and traditional seeds, massive deforestation, and the rise in malnutrition and obesity.
According to the Coalition, there is also a need to harmonize the Treaty’s MGR with the existing national policies under the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing, which governs the use of genetic resources in the EEZs. TNCs must not be allowed to pick and choose policy regimes that are more convenient to their bottom line, they said.
MPAs need justice-based frameworks too.
At the heart of the BBNJ lies its mechanism for area management tools, which includes establishing marine protected areas on the high seas. When done scientifically and with the full participation of indigenous people and rural communities, MPAs have proven to be an important tool for maintaining and restoring coastal ecosystems.
Small- and medium-sized fishers in coastal countries could be negatively impacted by the imposition of new MPAs in international waters, according to PCFS. This is because, without corresponding action against incursions of rich countries’ distant water fishing in the EEZs of developing nations, such MPAs could encourage poaching.
In the EEZs of low-income countries, where the majority of the population depends on fishing for protein, China, Taiwan, and South Korea account for 63% of all fishing efforts. In Guinea, where about 5 million small fishers rely on their coastal resources, over 80% of fishing efforts are done by Chinese fleets.
Ensuring that these MPAs not only restore ocean ecosystems but also support climate justice requires more than environmental impact assessments. The prescribed participation of indigenous and coastal communities in these processes should also translate to supporting actions against poaching and the protection of domestic fishers’ livelihoods.
Funding for capacity building and technology transfer should also include the phasing out of encroaching, highly subsidized fleets from rich nations while empowering fisher-led domestic industries in small island states and low-income developing countries.
Huge carve outs
Despite being a legally binding agreement under UNCLOS, the BBNJ treaty excludes military, government, and non-commercial activities from its purview.
PCFS says that imperialist governments such as the United Kingdom and China have historically used marine protected areas as a colonial tool of occupation.
WikiLeaks CableGate documents revealed that the UK has deliberately imposed a conservation perimeter around the Chagos Islands to prevent Mauritanians from returning to their homelands. Worse, the UK still refused to return the island to its inhabitants despite an official UNCLOS ruling.
In the highly contested channels of the South China Sea, China’s government has been known for unilaterally imposing MPAs to assert its claim, in direct violation of UNCLOS rulings.
PCFS calls on the UN to expand the regulation to include military and government entities, especially those with activities in the high seas that are harmful to the ocean ecosystem and in direct violation of UNCLOS.
Carving out the opportunity to further reinforce the London Convention against waste dumping in the ocean was a huge miss for BBNJ, PCFS asserts. Historical ocean polluters like the government of Japan and the US military continue to contribute immensely to the loss of biodiversity on the high seas.
More recently, Japan’s stubborn plan to dump nuclear waste water in the Pacific threatens the lives of fishers in small island developing states and one of the biodiversity biomes of the planet. China’s large-scale reclamation of atolls in the disputed South China Sea also poses a threat to these waters but remains unchallenged by UN mechanisms.
Common heritage of mankind
Touted as a win for multilateralism in the age of fragmented and multipolar policymaking, the BBNJ treaty recognized the oceans as a “common heritage of mankind” to counteract decades of the tragedy of the commons.
This concept, which originated in the first negotiations of the UNCLOS itself, reimagines the oceans as a commons that should be governed by multilateral systems. Designating the oceans beyond EEZs as a commons shifts their governance away from the current “freedom in the high seas” enshrined in the UNCLOS and toward the common good of humanity and the planet.
The necessary shift, however, lacks some headwinds from the final treaty, according to PCFS. Without regulatory oversight over extractivist entities like the Regional Fisheries Management Organizations and the International Seabed Authority (ISA), prioritizing climate action and biodiversity in the high seas will be an uphill battle.
While deep sea mining is still in its nascent stage, there’s growing evidence that suggests that the same dominant countries are poised to snatch its benefits while the planet and the Global South suffer.
Moreover, PCFS expressed its concern over the increasing scramble of polluting TNCs and rich nations to acquire so-called “blue carbons” to reach their climate pledges. While many of the projects under the “blue growth” portfolio have been repurposed towards National Determined Contributions to prevent “double counting,” there’s renewed interest in carbon trading based on ocean MPAs.
“For BBNJ to truly be a win for multilateralism and climate action, it must include safeguards to prevent polluter TNCs from using the pact as a cover for bluewashing schemes like blue-carbon trading and carbon offsets.” ###