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In June this year, the United Nations finally adopted a treaty about biodiversity in international waters after more than a decade of negotiations, which got some coverage in specialist media and the science columns of broadsheet newspapers. Still, it deserved more coverage. Several things about this treaty are truly groundbreaking. This has implications for the whole maritime sector, but we in the superyacht industry should take particular note. I’ll explain why in a minute, but first, let’s look at why this treaty is so vital.
Some of you will be familiar with the “law of the seas” concept. We study this in the Master’s Business and Law module for yacht captains. The development of the law of the sea has an ancient pedigree going back to ancient Greece and Rome and beyond. Much of it was based on custom and tradition. The laws imposed by countries were often based upon a “might is right” principle. In the 19th century, the British Empire had the longest coastline by far of any empire ever. It imposed a 3-mile territorial sea throughout the empire, based upon the range of cannons fired from the shore. It did not stop the British from claiming jurisdiction further out to sea if political or commercial interests demanded it. So, while there were general principles for the law of the sea, in practice, a lot depended upon the ability of a nation to impose its interpretation.
In 1982 the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) was agreed upon, which laid the ground rules for how nations impose their jurisdiction on the oceans. This was a major change after 20 years of debate. The first attempt to agree on this failed; the Geneva Convention on the Law of the Seas, 1958, was adopted but never ratified by enough countries to bring it into force. Countries just couldn’t agree; for example, the Turkish delegation could not accept the Greeks imposing a 12-mile limit because it would put large areas of the Aegean Sea under Greek jurisdiction.
Historically, all the focus has been on politics and commerce in the heated discussions leading to the failed 1958 and the successful 1982 conventions. Continental shelf rights allowed nations to exploit and protect the seabed and its subsoil. This jurisdiction extended to marine life, but this was not about environmental protection, but all about oil and gas! Equally, “Exclusive Economic Zone” rights were established, giving coastal states rights over the water column from the surface to the seabed to 200 nautical miles. But the clue is in the title, this is about fishing rights, not marine ecology. Beyond these limits lie the “high seas”. The UNCLOS convention is very clear that no nation can impose its jurisdiction on the high seas, but the other side of that coin is that a nation cannot be stopped by another nation doing (almost) whatever it wants. For example, the international efforts to stop whaling on the high seas have been effectively ignored by Japan, Iceland and Norway, who have claimed to be engaging in ‘scientific research’ when slaughtering hundreds of whales.
This is where this new United Nations treaty comes in. It is very much based upon the foundations laid in UNCLOS but it supplies a strong, new moral imperative beyond politics and commerce for the decisions made between maritime countries. It has effectively taken the principles enshrined in the famous “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and embedded them in international maritime law. This conference led to one of the most widely adopted international conventions, the UN Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), adopted in 1993. In its 2021 conference, the nations agreed to protect marine life in 30% of the high seas by 2030. This was the final push leading to the new UN High Sea Convention. It establishes a new concept of ‘Marine Protected Areas’ on the high seas. It requires that ‘Environmental Impact Assessments’ be carried out in these areas before any commercial activities, such as deep-sea mining for rare earth elements, can be carried out. It requires and facilitates sharing of scientific information, including genetic information, between countries.
So, does all this affect us in yachting? Yes! The dawning realisation that climate change and its sister, the threat to global biodiversity, is changing attitudes. The superyacht industry and the global commercial shipping fleet are now in the glare of a hostile spotlight from certain environmental lobbyists. We all need food, raw materials, and products to be shipped worldwide to keep us fed and the economy running. We all need the global shipping fleet, but NOBODY needs a superyacht! Not even the owners! A large yacht is the quintessence of elite luxury, symbolising wealth inequality. The superyacht industry is an obvious and easy target for lazy environmental activists out for a quick headline. The fact that the industry employs hundreds of thousands of people has a huge economic impact on multiple countries and is cleaner than merchant shipping is all irrelevant. It will only be considered if we get on the front foot with our external communications.
What can we do? Three things for starters…
Some good news is that we are beginning to wake up. Recently Henk de Vries and Peter Luerssen sponsored a meeting in Hamburg of 50 leaders in the superyacht industry. A call to action was made and widely supported. Words are one thing, but actions speak louder! We will face challenges in the next few months and years; let’s be ready.
John Wyborn
