Over the course of several years and several lengthy sessions, diplomats from all over the world worked in the negotiating rooms at UN headquarters in New York to create the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction treaty, or BBNJ Agreement, which was adopted in 2023 and was hailed at the time as a landmark for ocean governance. When the gavel came down, there was genuine warmth in the language used in the room. A framework for safeguarding marine biodiversity in international waters finally existed on paper after twenty years of unsuccessful attempts. The paper’s shortcomings and the discrepancies between its coverage and other frameworks that have been controlling various regions of the same ocean for decades without ever fully cooperating with one another are the issues.
The deep ocean is governed by a patchwork of international instruments that were created independently, function independently, and, for the most part, report to distinct organizations with various memberships, mandates, and formal obligations to consult one another before making decisions that impact shared ecosystems. The rights to collect minerals from the international seabed are overseen by the International Seabed Authority. Pollution and shipping are handled by the International Maritime Organization.
Particular fish stocks in particular zones are covered by regional fisheries management organizations. A new layer centered on biodiversity is added by the BBNJ Agreement, which includes benefit-sharing for marine genetic resources, environmental impact assessments, and area-based preservation measures. However, it is positioned next to these other tools rather than above them, and it lacks explicit procedures for resolving disputes arising from overlapping or contradicting mandates.
Marine experts are particularly concerned about the structural gap between the seafloor and the water column. The seafloor and the mineral riches beneath it are under the control of the ISA. A different set of instruments under different bodies control, if at all, what occurs in the water column above—the mid-water zone where sediment plumes from mining operations travel, where sound waves from industrial equipment propagate, and where the chemical signature of seabed disturbance diffuses upward over time. This administrative separation is not observed by the impacted ecological systems. When a mining vehicle disturbs benthic creatures, they release larvae that move through the water column. The bioluminescent species that mid-water predators rely on are suppressed by sediment plumes. Impact is incorporated. It’s not the governance.
The theoretical framework’s main practical weaknesses are found in enforcement. Flag-state jurisdiction is the main method used by high-seas law enforcement; the nation where a vessel is registered is in charge of making sure it abides by all applicable international regulations. The ability and desire of flag nations to carry out such role varies greatly. It has been shown that commercial companies operating in legally uncertain deep-sea environments can select registration jurisdictions that offer minimum scrutiny. While organizations collaborating with non-signatory states can easily operate outside the framework’s purview, the BBNJ Agreement’s mechanisms for compliance and enforcement primarily rely on the voluntary assistance of nations that have ratified it. This risk isn’t hypothetical. Deep-sea extraction has always worked in this manner, and nothing in the current architecture renders it structurally impossible to carry on.
Everything else is made worse by the monitoring issue. Deep-sea habitats are monitored sporadically using sensor networks that are located at isolated nodes rather than as continuous coverage, and by research expeditions that cover tiny areas at infrequent intervals. Because there is no system in place to measure them at the necessary spatial and temporal scale, cumulative impacts—such as the combined effect of noise from several concurrent operations, the overlap of sediment disturbance zones from nearby exploration tracks, and the additive chemical stress of warming and acidification on organisms already under pressure—are essentially invisible to the regulatory system. Protections against affects you are unable to identify cannot be enforced.
The biggest disparity between the goals of the treaty and its actual reality is seen in the financing issue. The current structure does not provide the persistent financial commitment required for equitable benefit-sharing procedures, deep-sea monitoring support for developing countries, and the independent scientific bodies required to truly assess environmental effects throughout the international seabed. Developed countries with interests in deep-sea resources have been hesitant to commit to spending levels that would enable the new infrastructure to operate as intended.
