2016 is likely to be pivotal year in international oceans governance. A number of key meetings and consultations in the first has of the year indicates a full agenda for states parties to key international instruments and the General Assembly processes:
The first session of the Preparatory Committee to make substantive recommendations to the General Assembly on the elements of a draft text of an international legally binding instrument under UNCLOS’ (UNDOLAS 2016) on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction is to be held in late march and early April 2016.
The Review Conference of The United Nations Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks will be resumed in New York (the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement) in late May 2016
The Seventeenth meeting of the United Nations Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea to be held in mid June 2016. This meeting focuses on an emerging and challenging marine environmental problem of ‘Marine debris, plastics and micro-plastics’.
Of these initiatives the development of an international legally binding instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction (ABNJ) is clearly significant. It addresses perceived lacunae in the Law of the Sea Convention, and is being approached in a similar manner to the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement; that is building on, rather than competing with the Convention.
Just as the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement has emerged as key instrument in the evolving high seas regime under the Law of the Sea Convention, it is likely that the instrument addressing ABNJ) will be a major extension to this regime. It is, of course too soon to make judgments on the scope and content of the outcomes of the March-April 2016 meeting. It is significant, however, that agreement was reached in 2015 to take recommendations to the United Nations General Assembly and to establish a Preparatory Committee for this purpose. A further area of interest will be how any agreement interacts with the other instruments focusing on high seas marine environment and conservation.
This issue of the Australian Journal of Maritime and Ocean Affairs continues to provide examples of continuity and change in the oceans agenda at different scales.
Denzil G.M. Miller and Elise Clarke provide an innovative approach to the issue of addressing illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in their paper ‘Promoting responsible harvesting by mitigating IUU fishing: A three-block and OODA construct’. Key aspects of IUU fishing are grouped within four tactical challenges (regulatory action, compliance enforcement (monitoring control and surveillance (MCS)), conservation policies and information exchange). These challenges are analogous to the four-block military dimensions of immediate action, peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and psychological/information operations. Miller and Clark argue that such conflict management frameworks are a useful, and novel, way to enhance the success of current efforts to counter IUU fishing activity and promote responsible fishing.
Gillian Treloar, John Gunn, Tim Moltmann, et al. provide a summary of Australia’s new National Marine Science Plan in the paper ‘The National Marine Science Plan: Informing Australia’s future ocean policy’. The plan was coordinated by National Marine Science Committee, comprising senior representatives of 23 research institutions, universities and government departments. The committee works together to plan, coordinate and communicate marine science and its application to national priorities. Australia’s National Marine Science Plan involved over 500 marine scientists and stakeholders took part in the development of the Plan, beginning with the development of eight community white papers. As Treloar, Gunn and Moltmann et al. note, the National Marine Science Plan aims to take a holistic approach to driving the development of Australia’s blue economy.
Hadi Ghaderi, Stephen Cahoon and Hong-Oanh Nguyen’s paper ‘The Role of Rail in the Australian Port-based Container Market: Challenges and Opportunities’ explores the role of rail in the Australian port-based container flows. The paper aims to identify the key impediments to the competitiveness of the rail sector in the port-based market.
Eddy Pratomo explores the challenges of maritime boundary delimitation in ‘Indonesia-Malaysia Maritime Boundaries Delimitation: A Retrospective’. This paper examines key issues in Indonesia-Malaysia maritime boundary negotiation. More than 50 years after the first agreements maritime boundary segments still remain to be settled. The paper highlights a number of important issues of the Indonesian-Malaysian maritime boundaries delimitation, notes the latest developments that may provide a way forward for the two nations.