Rio+20

UN General Assembly Adopts Resolution to Develop New Marine Biodiversity Treaty for the High Seas and Beyond

19 June, 2015

Source: High Seas Alliance

A landmark resolution was adopted earlier today by a consensus of UN member states, to develop a legally-binding treaty for the conservation of marine life beyond national territorial waters – that area of the ocean shared by all. Resolution UNGA 99/292 formalizes the recommendations made last January by the UN Ad Hoc Open-ended Informal Working Group (“UN Working Group”) which was tasked with assessing the feasibility of a new treaty, and signals a major step forward toward convening an intergovernmental negotiating conference that would finalize the terms of the new treaty, possibly in 2018. 

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Summary of the seventh meeting of the Working Group on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction

4 April, 2014

Source: iisd Reporting Services – Linkages

The seventh meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Informal Working Group to study issues relating to the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction (BBNJ) convened from 1-4 April 2014 at UN Headquarters in New York.

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UN debates high seas conservation – moves forward toward new treaty negotiations

23 August, 2013

The UN General Assembly’s special working group on high seas biodiversity conservation met this week to debate whether to launch negotiations for a new UN treaty to conserve and protect marine biodiversity in international waters. This was the first meeting of the UN working group since the Rio+20 Conference in Brazil (June 2012), which committed all nations to urgently address high seas protection.

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French government special envoy for the planet calls on French Fisheries Minister to support phase-out of deep-sea bottom trawling and bottom gillnet fishing

17 April, 2013

Source: BLOOM

At the conference on high seas governance organized by the French Consultative Assembly (The “CESE”,Economic, Social and Environmental Council) on April 11 in Paris, Mr.Nicolas Hulot,recently named “Special Envoy for the Protection of the Planet” by French President François Hollande, called on France to “take action” and urged French Fisheries Minister, Mr. Frédéric Cuvillier, to put an end to deep-sea fishing,which he called “an ecological and economic nonsense”, typical of a “wasteful civilization”.

Continue reading French government special envoy for the planet calls on French Fisheries Minister to support phase-out of deep-sea bottom trawling and bottom gillnet fishing