Dynamic Ocean Management in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction

Abstract

Law and space are intimately connected. In the ocean, the natural environment is divided into maritime zones. Such a division neglects the interconnected nature of the ocean and its inhabitants. Since this zonal approach relies on geographically stable boundaries, it also limits the opportunities to manage a fluid ocean. Area-based management tools, including marine protected areas (MPAs), address some of the limitations of zonal management. However, MPAs are also static from a geographical point of view. The deteriorating state of many marine species and ecosystems indicates a failure of traditional management approaches and puts a renewed emphasis on adapting legal scales to “natural scales,” such as ecosystems. In this article, we argue that there are positive trends and new tools that could be developed within the current legal order to face the challenges that nature is facing in the Anthropocene. One such tool is dynamic ocean management, which moves away from the static rationale of traditional ocean management illustrated here by MPAs, toward a management system focused on the temporal and spatial dynamism of the marine environment. In order to understand how such a management tool could be developed and used within the current legal system, we show how traditional ocean management rests on the notion of delimited and static boundaries and temporarily fixed measures. We discuss this in terms of fixity and simplification. Then we analyze dynamic ocean management and its potential to capture more of the complexity of the marine environment. This analysis is followed by an overview of MPAs and networks of MPAs in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), where we discuss the impact of the Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Treaty) in the development of dynamic ocean management. This overview provides information about both the possibilities and challenges of area-based management in ABNJ. We argue that MPA networks and large marine ecosystems (LMEs), coupled with the establishment of coordination mechanisms between existing institutional structures, are necessary first steps to secure dynamic ocean management.