Challenges Linked to High Seas Treaty

The High Seas Treaty: Ambition Meets Ambiguity

On September 22, 2025, the High Seas Treaty crossed a significant threshold as over 60 nations ratified the agreement, paving its way to formal enforcement from January 2026. While heralded as a breakthrough for marine biodiversity, its effectiveness will largely hinge on whether it can resolve longstanding tensions around access, sovereignty, and equity in international waters.

The Policy Instrument: The High Seas Treaty

The treaty, officially known as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement, seeks to address gaps left by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which has governed oceanic rights since 1982. Despite UNCLOS’s comprehensive regulatory framework, its limitations in addressing marine biodiversity outside national jurisdictions became glaring over time.

Key pillars of the treaty include:

• Marine Genetic Resources (MGRs): Designated as the "common heritage of humankind," their usage is tied to equitable benefit-sharing mechanisms, although operational specifics remain unclear.
• Area-Based Management Tools (ABMTs): These include Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) aimed at conservation, climate resilience, and sustainable fisheries.
• Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs): Mandatory for activities that could have cumulative or transboundary environmental effects.

Further, the treaty interlinks with global climate goals such as SDG14 (Life Below Water), emphasizing sustainable use over unrestricted extraction.

The Case For the Treaty: A Global Imperative

There is no denying the urgency. Nearly two-thirds of the ocean’s surface, covering over 95% of its volume, lies in areas beyond national jurisdiction—largely unregulated and under increasing stress from overfishing, mining, climate change, and pollution. The treaty’s proactive stance on establishing MPAs and conducting EIAs represents a long-overdue attempt at securing oceans from extractive industries that have persisted with impunity.

Proponents argue that the transformative commitment to Marine Genetic Resources (MGRs) as the “common heritage of humankind” is particularly groundbreaking, especially in the context of rising commercial interest in bioprospecting. By mandating equitable benefit-sharing, the treaty aims to prevent biopiracy—a trend where developed nations disproportionately monopolize genetic material from international waters, leaving poorer nations excluded.

Moreover, technologies required for effective ocean governance—satellite monitoring of MPAs, deep-sea exploration tools—are part of capacity-building provisions under the treaty. For developing nations, this could bridge longstanding inequities in biodiversity resource management.

The Case Against: Legal Ambiguities and Political Barriers

Despite the optimism, the ambiguities surrounding key principles like MGR benefit-sharing raise difficult questions. The term “common heritage of humankind” is noble in theory, yet lacks clear rules for access and distribution. How will genetic resources derived from international waters—which can easily be used in patented biotechnologies—be traced and monitored for equitable sharing?

Additionally, institutional overlap and fragmentation loom large. For instance, Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs) already oversee commercial fishing in overlapping areas. How will their mandates harmonize with new ABMTs under the treaty? Worse, the absence of major geopolitical players such as the U.S., China, and Russia from the ratification process severely undermines its effectiveness. Collectively, these nations account for 53% of global high seas fishing; their non-participation creates enforcement black holes.

The real concern, however, is implementation. Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) sound robust on paper but lack clarity on transboundary effects. Without consistent, enforceable criteria, EIAs risk becoming bureaucratic bottlenecks rather than meaningful barriers to unsustainable practices.

International Experience: Lessons from Australia

Australia’s management of its Great Barrier Reef provides instructive parallels. The country supplements Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) with legally binding Environmental Management Plans (EMPs) that define extractive limits for industries in ecologically sensitive zones. While effective in curbing coral bleaching due to over-tourism, critics argue that its enforcement is highly resource-intensive and prone to lobbying pressures.

This underlines a crucial lesson for the treaty: MPAs require dynamic monitoring rather than static markers. Without sufficient funding or personnel for continuous surveillance, high seas governance risks replicating Australia’s uneven outcomes.

Where Things Stand: The Stakes of Inaction

As January 2026 approaches, the treaty faces more questions than answers—questions not just of political will, but of operational feasibility. Will equitable access to Marine Genetic Resources withstand commercial pressures? Can Area-Based Management tools avoid jurisdictional conflicts? And above all, will the absence of major geopolitical players hollow out global enforcement?

The largest risk is fragmentation—a scenario where differing interpretations of “common heritage,” “freedom of the seas,” and overlapping institutions create a patchwork of competing regulations rather than the coherent governance the treaty aspires to.

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