Cape Town - The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea has been successful in regulating merchant shipping and various other maritime areas, say legal specialists.
But it has been much less successful in conserving the biodiversity of the oceans and in helping to maximise economic returns from global “high seas” fishing, the specialists said.
They were among a number of experts who addressed the inaugural meeting of the Global Ocean Commission in Cape Town last week.
The commission, co-chaired by planning minister Trevor Manuel, former Costa Rican President José María Figueres and former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband, is an independent, privately-funded group of international heavyweight movers.
The commissioners will spend the next year compiling a report on how to reverse the degradation of the high seas – those parts of the ocean that are not within individual nations’ 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zones – and restore them to full health and sustainable productivity.
Their recommendations will be sent to UN ahead of the General Assembly discussion in the latter half of next year on protecting high seas biodiversity – a commitment made at the international Rio+20 summit last year.
According to a statement issued by the commission after its meeting, there is a “watertight case” for reforming the way the high seas are governed and managed, backed up by evidence from the fields of economics, science, equity and public opinion.
Problems drawn to its attention at the meeting included poor fisheries practices, inequalities in access to ocean resources, and continuing damage to marine life.
Referring to the experts’ opinion on the UN convention on the law of the sea, Miliband said: “When you look at the way the high seas are governed and managed, you see a system that is seriously fragmented and, in some important ways, simply out of date.
“On land, when we look around the world, we see how crucial good governance is for economies and for the environment, and the high seas are no different. Reform is imperative.”
A key concern at the meeting was equity. The commission heard that developing countries were disproportionately affected by overfishing, and lacked the technical and political resources to gain an equitable footing in management bodies.
“Hunger is most serious in the developing world, while the nations that spend the most on harmful fishing subsidies are developed ones,” said commissioner Obiageli Ezekwesili, ex-Nigerian education minister and founder of Transparency International.
“On our increasingly crowded planet, such disparities are simply outdated; we have to put them behind us.” - Cape Argus