Extractive activity in international waters – including fishing, seabed mining, and oil and gas exploitation – should be banned forever, according to top scientists.
The high seas, the vast international waters beyond national jurisdiction, remain largely unprotected and are increasingly threatened.
Writing in the journal Nature, Professor Callum Roberts and co-authors argue that stopping all extractive activity in international waters would prevent irreversible damage to marine biodiversity, the climate, and ocean equity.
This would also be a decisive step toward achieving the goal of protecting 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030, as set out in the Global Biodiversity Framework agreed in 2022.
“Life in the high seas is vital to the ocean’s ability to store carbon and is too important to lose,” said lead author Professor Callum Roberts, Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of Exeter and lead researcher with the Convex Seascape Survey. “This paper makes the case that we must stop extractive activities in the high seas permanently, to protect the climate, restore biodiversity and safeguard ocean function for future generations.”
While I completely agree that this is needed, I can’t see any realistic way of enforcing it.
There is no one owning international waters, so no one to enforce the rules, and you can’t jail a country or government that keeps letting their citizens abuse international waters, any fine posted for a company or nation will simply not be paid or considered the cost of doing business and budgeted for.
The same treaties that define what are international waters also define universal jurisdiction for some crimes - every country is allowed to exercise their sovereignty against pirates for example. The list “just” needs to be expanded.
I get what you mean, but I doubt it is enough