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Article written by the Geneva Forum
Editorial direction: Mr Thomas EGLI, CEO.
A rich but still incomplete global governance
Ocean governance already exists. It has been built progressively, over decades, through legal frameworks, international conventions, specialized institutions, scientific organizations, coalitions of States, NGOs and regional networks. Today it forms a dense, sometimes impressive architecture, which frames the law of the sea, the high seas, marine biodiversity, fisheries, maritime transport, the seabed, pollution and scientific cooperation, and soon plastic...
This architecture is necessary. It has made it possible to establish rules, create mandates, distribute responsibilities, and enable a form of cooperation between States and between institutions. But it remains too fragmented to fully respond to the resilience crisis facing the Ocean. Each actor acts within its own field, each organization pursues its mandate, each convention responds to its purpose, each network produces its own data and its own priorities.
The result is paradoxical: the Ocean has many governance frameworks, but it does not yet have sufficiently integrated governance of its resilience. Rules exist, but not always the operational capacities to connect them to the field. Data exist, but not always the bridges needed to make them useful to decision-makers, funders and citizens. Funding exists, but not always projects that are sufficiently clear, structured and comparable to attract it. Citizens are ready to act, but not always the mechanisms allowing them to contribute to useful scientific action.
It is precisely this gap that must now be addressed.
A transformation already under way
In recent years, several major developments have shown that global Ocean governance is entering a new phase. The BBNJ agreement on the high seas marks a structuring step. The United Nations Decade of Ocean Science
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