The conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction

The context to this paper is the difficulty – recognised by the Conference of the Parties (COP)of the Convention on Biological Diversity – of protecting deep seabed genetic resources and of conserving and sustainably using biodiversity in marine areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. The COP has identified a number of actions including the establishment of networks of marine protected areas (MPAs) that require international coordination. The concerns that motivate such actions are explored in some detail later, but include the effects of pollution of marine environments, sustainability of the commercial exploitation of fish and other marine animals, the transmission of pests and pathogens in ballast water, bottom trawling that harms biodiversity in the substrate, sea mounts and deep water corals, and the habitat disruption caused by the mining of seamounts for ferromanganese crusts. Hydrothermal vents are susceptible to damage from mining for polymetallic sulphides, as are bacteria in gas hydrates (Pew Commission, 2003a; FAO, 2004; UN, 2004a). I consider the socio-economic factors affecting international coordination of actions to address these threats. These include the institutional and market conditions under which marine resources beyond the limits of national jurisdiction are exploited, the importance of the environmental effects of economic activities that are external to the market, the nature of the public good to be protected by coordinated actions, and the options open to the international community to address the problem.