NEWS
Governments Warned Against Inaction on Marine Resources
Professor David Berry Professor of International Law and Regional Integration Law Faculty of Law, The UWI, Cave Hill Campus
the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) was adopted at the UN in June 2023. Less than six months later, it was the subject of Professor Berry’s Professorial Lecture titled “Blue Economies and the 2023 BBNJ Agreement – another treaty commitment without tangible benefits for Caribbean States?” which he delivered 9 November 2023 . He recognised that each country has a 200 nautical mile jurisdiction beyond their territorial sea known as the exclusive economic zone (EEZ). However, beyond national EEZs are vast areas of ocean, the high seas. These international areas, labelled Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction , fall within the scope of the agreement and represent almost two- thirds of the global oceans. Professor Berry said the BBNJ Agreement seeks to establish a regime for the use and conservation of marine biological diversity in those underregulated
areas of the high seas and on the deep seabed. More specifically, marine biological diversity will be protected from existing and future activities that threaten the marine ecosystem, and there will be strict regulation of marine genetic resources as well as their related digital sequencing information. Noting the tremendous scientific and economic potential for marine genetic resources, he said this must be fairly and equitably shared and provisions have been made to facilitate this. Systems will, therefore, facilitate capacity-building, marine technology transfer, marine genetic resource access, and financing. Although the Caribbean Sea covers less than one per cent of the world’s ocean, Professor Berry said all countries in this region will be affected because the agreement does not give benefits based on proximity or adjacency.
Having served as one of the lead CARICOM negotiators on an international treaty that has significant implications for the entire region, Professor David Berry of the Faculty of Law is now cautioning the governments against inertia regarding that treaty. T he legal scholar is so passionate about the issue that he used his professorial lecture, an event held by The University of the West Indies (The UWI) to celebrate the elevation of an academic to the university’s highest academic rank, to analyse the agreement. The Cave Hill academic was officially recognised as a Professor of International Law and Regional Integration Law by The UWI in May 2022. The international legally binding instrument under the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Law of the Sea on
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