The High Seas Treaty will come into force in January 2026!
The Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (also known as the agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction or ‘BBNJ’) was created to implement the Global Biodiversity Framework, which commits countries to protect and conserve at least 30% of the ocean, and ensure 30% of degraded areas are under restoration, by 2030. The treaty provides for a global legal framework to establish protected areas in the high seas and mandates management plans for these areas, with countries working together to ensure that these plans are implemented and enforced correctly.
Under the Treaty, the Agreement shall enter into force 120 days after the date of deposit of the sixtieth instrument of ratification, approval, acceptance or accession. As it has now recieved those 60 ratifications, the Agreement will now come into force on 17 January 2026, with the first step of the Treaty to be deciding which areas of the open ocean are to become protected areas.
The open ocean is obviously very hard to monitor, as no one country actually owns the open ocean and therefore it can be very hard to keep track of what is happening within these waters. The Treaty aims to create a collective effort from all the countries signed up to it to work together to ensure that 30% of the ocean is protected. Time will tell if this is effective, and I can imagine that the plans and tactics used to protect the ocean will change overtime as countires work together to find out the best ways to monitor protective measures, but this Treaty is still a huge step forward for global ocean protection.
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