The last two weeks have seen a succession of intense talks. Then, in an overnight marathon from Friday into Saturday, the delegates finalised a text that can now no longer be significantly amended.
The agreement will be formally adopted at a later date, once it has been reviewed by lawyers and translated into the six official languages of the United Nations.
The main outlines of the Treaty
The high seas (high seas) is a term for the waters that begin at the edge of countries’ exclusive economic zones, which extend up to 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres) from the coast. They therefore do not fall under the jurisdiction of any country.
The new treaty will make it possible to establish large-scale marine protected areas across the high seas. This will allow fulfilment of the global commitment of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity agreement, concluded last December, to protect at least 30% of the ocean by 2030.
The treaty also requires the impact of economic activities on high seas biodiversity to be assessed.
Also on the economic front, any profits deriving from the pharmaceutical, chemical or cosmetic use of recently discovered marine substances, which belong to no one, will have to be shared taking into account developing countries, which lack the means to afford costly research. The latter have in fact fought not to be excluded from the expected earnings from the commercialisation of potential substances discovered in international waters.
The treaty provides for supporting them in their participation in and implementation of the new treaty through a strong component of capacity building and marine technology transfer, funded by a variety of public and private sources.
With the negotiations over, the Agreement will enter into force after ratification by 60 States. At EU level, the commitment to implementing the Treaty takes the form of a promise of 40 million euros under a Global Ocean Programme.
This is not the only commitment the EU has made in recent days on safeguarding the seas.
During the global “Our Ocean” conference held in Panama on 2 and 3 March, the EU pledged to allocate over 860 million dollars for research, monitoring and conservation in 2023 – out of a total of pledges from the states taking part in the Panama conference of about 19 billion dollars.
