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David Levy – The Global High Seas: A Unified Treaty? – March 2023

At least four years have passed since the UN, with its Convention on the Law of the Sea, convened a series of sessions to draft a Treaty for the High Seas, and it has taken that time for countries to agree a form of words acceptable to the all the countries involved in the new Treaty’s drafting.

A form of words has been agreed, yes.   However the detail of the new High Seas Treaty, which is the essential element, is far from present.

This detail concerns the management structure for delivery and enforcement and it is sadly absent.   It is this absence that is most concerning, and even alarming, when taking into focus the problems we currently face, worldwide.

Hovering in the wings are such issues as deep sea mining, and here there are no promises of re-evaluating any such proposals and any actual applications for licenses.

One cannot stress enough the urgency of the decline of the planet’s oceans, and at the moment we are only able to congratulate ourselves with half-measures and semi-successes.

I have always said that the UN, although is the best body we have, is always doomed to failure because it can be sabotaged by non-voting and by the failure of some countries to sign-up to its decisions.

We have to change to a world which functions as a world.   This means majority voting winning the day.   All members would have to abide by this majority decision, and this revitalized new body would be given the powers and resources to carry out the collective will.   This would provide the teeth the world needs to get things done.   It is the only way to engender a responsible approach to governing our world and its resources.

Some countries already abide by this thinking and are members of Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) whose job is to govern fishing in their area of the High Sea.   However they too sometimes have fleets of foreign fishing vessels coming into their waters which, regardless, fish there illegally with no comeback.

Am I the only person that reads the current situation with some dread?

We are proceeding too slowly and with insufficient solutions and aspirations, and we are not engaged in any meaningful way with the urgency of our problems.

David Levy