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The Ship Has Reached the Shore: The High Seas Treaty Explained · How To Protect The Ocean

• 0:00
  There's a video online of a room full of pretty much exhausted
• 0:03
  diplomats breaking into applause after nearly 20 years of work.
• 0:09
  One woman is shown bringing down the gavel and says, " The ship has reached
• 0:14
  the shore." And that moment ended a treaty negotiation that had already
• 0:18
  failed once in public two years ago, or I even think a year ago, like before that.
• 0:24
  And it just became binding international law this year, and the
• 0:28
  fight over what it actually protects is happening exactly right now.
• 0:34
  This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, your information
• 0:38
  for everything that has to do with ocean, whether it's news, science,
• 0:41
  conservation, stories that I like to tell about what's been happening.
• 0:46
  This is a story that we're gonna talk about today about the High Seas Treaty,
• 0:51
  or what's known as the Borders Beyond National Jurisdiction, so the BBNJ.
• 0:57
  We're gonna talk about the history of it.
• 1:00
  We're gonna talk about why it took so long to put together and what
• 1:04
  is actually involved, and how it's gonna make the world a better place if
• 1:09
  everything works out the way it does.
• 1:11
  Or again, if you listened to yesterday's episode when we talk about public
• 1:14
  policy and we talk about how putting something in place right now is better
• 1:18
  than not putting in place at all, and building on the baseline and building
• 1:23
  up to get more protections later on.
• 1:25
  Having public policy in place now is better than not having anything at all.
• 1:29
  Remember that when people come to you about policy or try to critique
• 1:33
  you about policy not being perfect.
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  It's never perfect, it never will be perfect, but we can get
• 1:37
  to near, damn near close, and I think it's important to do that.
• 1:41
  All right, so let's just go through, like, the history.
• 1:42
  So, 2004, the idea first surfaces at the UN Oceans Working Session.
• 1:47
  So it's like, "Hey, we need to protect the high seas," which is everything
• 1:50
  beyond the national jurisdiction.
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  So the exclusive economic zone stretches out 200 nautical miles from shore
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  for every country, and so anything within that EEZ, that country protects.
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  So Canada has a 200 nautical mile limit all around, it's the longest
• 2:03
  coastline in the world, and it protects everything in there.
• 2:06
  It's responsible for everything in there, so it can do pretty much
• 2:08
  whatever it wants or anything in those exclusive economic zones.
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  Same with every, any other country, right?
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  Sovereign country.
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  Now, so at this point, anything beyond those borders though is
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  pretty much open to anybody.
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  Nobody has jurisdiction.
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  People can fish outside of Canada's borders, the Exclusive economic zone,
• 2:23
  Argentina, wherever that is, wherever those fish are, they can actually go.
• 2:26
  So, like, when the cod stock was huge, you know, we were getting a lot of
• 2:29
  Portuguese and Spanish fishing fleets that were coming over and sitting on, on
• 2:32
  that border, sometimes crossing it, which was a big no-no, and fishing the cod.
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  But we were already having problems with cod, and so we didn't wanna have
• 2:40
  that problem be caused by somebody else or helped caused by somebody else.
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  So we wanted to protect our borders, and so we had to send out Coast
• 2:46
  Guard ships and even Navy ships at some point, to scare them off.
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  So anything beyond those borders, the national jurisdiction,
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  it's pretty much Wild West.
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  You can pretty much do whatever you want.
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  So the idea in 2004 first surfaced at the UN Oceans working session, and from
• 3:00
  2006 to 2015, there was, like, an ad hoc open-ended informal working group that
• 3:05
  meets, like, nine separate times just to study whether a treaty was even needed.
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  Like, think about that.
• 3:11
  You're spending almost 10 years, right, nine years going after, like,
• 3:15
  "Hey, do we actually need this or not?" So in 2015, the working group
• 3:18
  finally recommends to the UN, " We actually need this draft," right?
• 3:21
  "We have to have draft one. Like, let's go for draft one." And so
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  2016 to 2017, there's a preparatory committee holds four sessions to rough
• 3:30
  out what the treaty should contain.
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  And then 2018 to 2023, a formal intergovernmental conference
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  holds five negotiating sessions to write the actual legal text.
• 3:41
  "We should probably think about this," to a finished treaty, which is, a good
• 3:46
  concrete answer to why does international policy move so slowly, is because
• 3:50
  you're dealing with so many countries.
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  You're dealing with the world, all the countries, and they have to agree.
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  And it took two decades to just be like, "Hey, we should probably think
• 3:58
  about this. We should probably do this," and then have those discussions start.
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  So it takes a long time to negotiate these types of treaties.
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  Now, what are they actually fighting over?
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  And it comes down to really four pillars, that's in the
• 4:10
  BBNJ or the High Seas Treaty.
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  I'll refer to it as the High Seas Treaty right now.
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  So the first pillar, who gets to profit from marine genetic resources
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  discovered in international waters?
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  So deep sea organisms used in medicine or biotech.
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  If, say, Canada or the US goes into the Philippines and catches these animals
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  and we're like, "Oh, actually, you know what? We studied them, and they
• 4:31
  can cure cancer." Well, that's great.
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  Well, the pharmaceutical companies make all the money, like in Canada and the
• 4:36
  US, but then what about the Philippines?
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  Those animals were found there.
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  You went into the waters near there.
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  They should have a cut of that profit as well because they just didn't
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  have the ability to go get it, cause they don't have the money to do so.
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  So it's like how those benefits get shared with countries that can't afford deep
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  sea research fleets of their own, right?
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  It's an important part of that equity that we see around the world that
• 4:57
  needs to happen around the world.
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  Same thing with climate change, right?
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  When we have these carbon credits where you can trade carbon credits, but
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  also some countries pay more for the consequences of climate change compared
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  to others who don't have the technology to be able to protect themselves, right?
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  Now, the other pillar was how to actually create marine protected
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  areas in international waters where there's no single country that
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  has jurisdiction to declare one.
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  So who's in charge of that?
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  So if a marine protected area gets put off the coast of Argentina, the
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  exclusive economic zone, just off of that, where the squid come out and it's
• 5:24
  a big fishery, and then you have this distant water fleet that sits there.
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  But if they want that to be protected, who's gonna manage that?
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  It's gonna be Argentina probably, but who else?
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  Their neighbors?
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  Is it gonna be some African countries that come over?
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  Is it gonna be China, who has the largest distant fleet?
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  There's gonna be a lot of people who want access to that, and wanna make
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  sure that these marine protected areas work, but also who manages it?
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  Is it every country?
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  That's gonna be impossible to get anything done anytime soon.
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  So that kind of goes through that process.
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  The third pillar is requiring environmental impact assessments before
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  new high seas activities go forward.
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  Now, this is an important one 'cause we talked last week
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  a lot about deep sea mining.
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  So imagine if the US, no matter what, wants to go and do something in the
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  international waters as it's trying to do in other places, they would
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  have to do an impact assessment.
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  The companies would have to do an impact assessment.
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  Who holds them responsible if they're not on the UNCLOS, the
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  UN Convention of Law of the Sea.
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  It gets a little complicated, but that's what the idea is.
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  If anybody tries to do deep sea mining in the international waters, in the
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  high seas, they would have to do an impact assessment be- before going
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  forward to show that they're not gonna do any damage or minimal damage.
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  So we'll see how that goes.
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  That's the third pillar.
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  The fourth pillar, capacity building and technology transfer, so poorer
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  coastal nations aren't locked out of enforcing or benefiting from any of this.
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  Now, this is, again, it's an equity thing, is to make sure that the
• 6:40
  countries that are near or dear to these animals that get caught or any
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  activities that happen, they have the ability to do the same thing.
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  So it's capacity building for these countries and technology transfer
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  to be able to help and to be able to do this type of work instead of just
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  having to give money from developed countries to developing countries,
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  they can actually do it themselves.
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  So these four pillars are big things.
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  These are huge, huge items.
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  They're huge pillars that if you look at it right off the bat, if you look
• 7:06
  at the High Seas Treaty, you're like, "Oh, there's a lot of loopholes in
• 7:08
  here." And again, step-by-step approach.
• 7:11
  This is the first version of the High Seas Treaty.
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  And at this point, we have about 88 to 89 countries that have ratified this.
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  So we had 60 that ratified it in September of 2025 that allowed this treaty to
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  go into effect in January 17th, 2026.
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  And then that was when we had 60, and then since then we've had
• 7:32
  at least 28 more, maybe even 29.
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  It changes every day.
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  So that's kinda cool.
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  Now, this policy did not come into play easily.
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  It was supposed to be done in like August 2022.
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  And it almost didn't.
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  It almost just kinda fell apart.
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  So in August 2022, the fifth negotiating session, IGC5, ended without a deal.
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  So negotiators got close, real progress was made on all of the
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  four pillars, but they ran out of time and couldn't close the gap.
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  So there's a time to these negotiations, and especially the marine genetic
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  resources and how to fund implementation.
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  So like think about it, you're almost there.
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  You're against the clock, and you're in this room, windowless
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  room, and there are people outside like running up and down the halls,
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  like pacing, waiting for an answer.
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  They're so close to the first High Seas Treaty, yet that doesn't happen.
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  Imagine like how people would feel after that session, the ones that
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  were negotiating, trying to get there, trying to get countries to agree
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  to something, compromise, just to agree to something that is effective.
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  You can't just say, "Oh, well yeah, this country's gonna be able to do
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  it, but the other country can't,"
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  especially with the sharing of marine genetic resources, and
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  how to fund that implementation.
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  It has to come a compromise that everybody agrees on and it's equal for everybody.
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  Nobody's gonna say, " Well, Russia can do it, but I can't.
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  That's gonna be okay with me."
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  No, that doesn't happen.
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  So the mood afterwards was like, oh, you know, it was a little defle- defeated,
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  but it's like very carefully optimistic.
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  They were so close.
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  They're like, "We're gonna get it." But it was a failure even after 18 years of
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  work, it was still a failure in 2022.
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  And that failure is useful in really thinking about how hard it is to
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  negotiate these types of treaties, these international treaties.
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  It takes a long time.
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  We're at 18 years at this point in the timeline, and nothing has been
• 9:14
  agreed on, or there's some parts, but it hasn't been fully agreed to.
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  You create the pillars.
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  It has to be those pillars, and that's how we're moving forward.
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  But it wasn't until a second try after falling visibly
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  short that the world was ready.
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  And so, on Friday, you're gonna hear the description of the interviewee
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  that describes the actual moment, the breakthrough, and she'll never forget it.
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  Tied to the High Seas Treaty finally getting agreed upon.
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  And there's a video of that online.
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  It's wonderful to hear.
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  Like, the chair was Ambassador Rena Lee of Singapore, President of
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  the UN Intergovernmental Conference of Marine Biodiversity of Areas
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  Beyond National Jurisdiction.
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  And so, like, she's the one, boom, the agreement.
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  It hits, the gavel goes down.
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  She becomes emotional because, it's 20 years at this point.
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  And the agreement on the text was reached the evening of March 4th, 2023, at the
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  UN headquarters in New York at the resumed fifth session, after a roughly
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  36-hour final negotiation marathon.
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  So, think about that.
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  You don't leave the room for 36 hours, maybe for bathroom
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  breaks and food, but that's it.
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  And then when she hit that gavel, she's like, "The ship has reached the
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  shore." Like, that line, like, she must have practiced over and over again.
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  Like, how do you make this memorable?
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  And I'll tell you,
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  Rena made this so memorable.
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  "The ship has reached the shore." And then you had, like, the sustained
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  applause and a standing ovation from, I'm sure, a visibly exhausted room.
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  I'll never forget the video.
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  I remember watching it and being like, "Holy cow, this is huge. This is massive."
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  We're, like, the kind of the middle to the end of COVID, mid to the end of COVID.
• 10:43
  Everybody's inside watching on YouTube like, "This is amazing."
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  It made, like, worldwide news.
• 10:48
  And then the treaty was formally adopted by consensus on June 19th, 2023, so it
• 10:53
  hasn't been put into place at this point.
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  Everybody has to adopt it.
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  They need a certain amount of countries to adopt it, and it's closed nearly 20
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  years of negotiation in different formats.
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  And so, like, the person that I'm interviewing on Friday, her
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  personal eyewitness account, it's not something that we could, just
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  see, but to be in that room while everybody is looking is just amazing.
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  Like, everybody's like, "We're done. Like, we've done this."
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  Now it's up to the countries to ratify it.
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  And if you think about it, like this is not a history lesson.
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  This is live right now.
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  This is what we're going through right now.
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  The treaty needed 60 countries to ratify to become a binding international law.
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  And that hit it on September 19th, 2025, when Morocco became
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  the 60th ratifying nation.
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  Canada wasn't, the US wasn't, they still aren't.
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  These are countries that I would expect to be on there, maybe not
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  the US these days, but Canada for sure, and they haven't done it yet.
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  Now, the High Seas Treaty formally entered into force, as I mentioned
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  earlier, on January 17th, 2026, which is just this year.
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  Like it's just starting.
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  It's like a binding law.
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  It's not just a symbolic milestone.
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  It's a binding law.
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  If you think about roughly two-thirds of the ocean, close to half of the planet's
• 12:00
  surface lies on international waters outside any single country's jurisdiction.
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  Before this treaty, less than 1% of that had any form of protection.
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  Now, the treaty is a primary legal tool for hitting the
• 12:13
  globally adopted 30 by 30 target.
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  Now, we only have less than four years left to hit that target,
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  protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030.
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  Agreed to by 196 countries in 2022.
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  Like, this is another international agreement, so it builds on it together.
• 12:27
  Now, there's already been a meeting in March and April this year, 2026.
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  It already happened, and it's starting to move things forward.
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  And then the third session of the treaty's preparation committee ran
• 12:36
  on March 23rd, to April, to April 2nd, at the the UN headquarters.
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  Over 200 delegates were present.
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  So, since then, ratifications keep climbing.
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  During that meeting itself in March and April, Dominican Republic and
• 12:47
  Austria both ratified while delegates were in the room, so that was huge,
• 12:51
  bringing the total to 88 parties by the close of the session on April 2nd.
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  And that's the most recent figure that I've seen.
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  I haven't seen anything else, but there might be 89.
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  It's like inconsistent in some of the other things.
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  But if you go on the High Seas Alliance website, they have the ratification
• 13:06
  line, and it'll tell you how many it has.
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  And as of doing this recording, there was 88.
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  So it's kind of interesting to see how this is going.
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  Now, there is a conference of parties, a COP1, that is set.
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  So the preparatory commission's co-chairs recommended the first
• 13:19
  conference of the parties run
• 13:20
  January 11th to the 22nd, 2027, at UN headquarters in New York.
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  So that's the meeting where the leftover fights actually get resolved.
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  So everything that didn't get through or needed to be passed that couldn't
• 13:31
  get passed on the resolution they'll be going toe to toe on that for a while.
• 13:35
  Now, some of the things that did come out of that meeting in March and April, was
• 13:39
  that terms of reference for the treaty's subsidiary scientific and technical
• 13:42
  panels and an agreement to build a prototype clearing house mechanism
• 13:47
  that shared data system, basically, including protections for how indigenous
• 13:51
  traditional knowledge is handled in it.
• 13:53
  That's ahead of the COP1.
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  So there's still some things that are heading in that are still unresolved in
• 13:58
  COP1, is like how much money wealthier countries are obligated to put in, and
• 14:01
  how contributions are capped, and then how Article 18's area-based management
• 14:06
  tools, the actual process for designation of high seas marine protected area
• 14:10
  that'll handle individual countries' sovereignty concerns, of course.
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  Who gets observer status at meetings and on what terms, and who hosts
• 14:18
  the treaty's secretariat, with Belgium, Chile, and China all bidding
• 14:21
  on a decision deferred to COP1.
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  So all these things are gonna be decided in COP1, or at least discussed in COP1.
• 14:28
  We don't know if they're gonna get decided.
• 14:30
  It's kind of a cool thing to live through.
• 14:33
  Over the last 20 years, we've seen negotiations really start with, " Hey,
• 14:37
  maybe we should do something about this.
• 14:38
  We should look into this," to, "Oh, let's, start getting
• 14:40
  something going," in the mid-2010s.
• 14:43
  And then as we get into the early 2020s, we have an agreement.
• 14:46
  Like, first it failed, then we got an agreement.
• 14:48
  This goes to show how hard it is to negotiate these types of international
• 14:51
  agreements, but it's possible.
• 14:53
  Countries could come together and do it.
• 14:56
  And it's a matter of like, hey, this first one, like if I look at this landmark
• 15:00
  treaty, It's not perfect by any means.
• 15:02
  When I first looked at it, I'm like, "Oh, there's a lot of loopholes."
• 15:05
  But it's a beginning.
• 15:06
  It's a beginning that we need.
• 15:07
  We need the countries to agree that we can do this.
• 15:10
  Now that it's agreed to and ratified, now we build.
• 15:14
  Now the work starts.
• 15:15
  We just started getting it going.
• 15:16
  Let's see how this works.
• 15:17
  Maybe get a marine protected area in or get all that solved.
• 15:20
  There's a lot to go into.
• 15:21
  It's not just now we're gonna designate a bunch of marine protected areas.
• 15:24
  I'm sure that'll happen at times, and I'm sure there are sites that
• 15:27
  have been designated as priority sites that need to be protected.
• 15:31
  And so once it does go through, once they solve all the nuances around that, or
• 15:35
  most of them, those will be proposed, and they will be discussed, and they will
• 15:39
  be fought over by words and in these windowless rooms for 36 hours at a time.
• 15:44
  And hopefully by the end of that time, there'll be something that comes out
• 15:48
  that's binding, that is a boundary on paper and enforceable on the water.
• 15:53
  And I think that is really cool.
• 15:56
  And to see how negotiators reacted when the gavel finally went down, that was
• 16:01
  something that, it got me emotional, and I'm not even a policy person.
• 16:04
  It's just to think about that countries around the world came together
• 16:07
  and agreed on a certain number of measures, and these pillars are pretty
• 16:10
  important that I went through, these four pillars, where they agree that
• 16:12
  this is what needs to be done in the future, and they actually got it done.
• 16:15
  And it's not perfect, but it's something to start with.
• 16:18
  So that's the episode for today.
• 16:20
  I would love to hear your thoughts on this whole process.
• 16:23
  How do you think?
• 16:23
  Do you think it should've gone faster?
• 16:25
  What do you think could help in the future?
• 16:26
  I would love to hear your thoughts.
• 16:27
  If you're on Spotify, hit me up in a comment.
• 16:29
  Love to hear from you.
• 16:31
  If you want to hit me up on Instagram or TikTok or Facebook
• 16:34
  or whatever, you can do that.
• 16:35
  The links are in the show notes.
• 16:36
  But I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the
• 16:39
  How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
• 16:41
  Tomorrow, we're gonna be talking about seafood and seafood labels and how you
• 16:44
  as a consumer can really drive what retailers do, especially when we have
• 16:48
  the infrastructure at the top and the policies at the top, and the organization
• 16:52
  is ready to certify sustainable seafood.
• 16:54
  So we're gonna talk about that tomorrow.
• 16:55
  Don't miss it.
• 16:56
  This has been another episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
• 16:59
  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.
• 17:00
  Have a great day.
• 17:00
  We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.