Abstract
Recent decades have seen a rapid increase in the diversity of ocean uses and threats, leading to the Anthropocene ocean: a place fraught with challenges for governance such as resource collapse, pollution, and changing sea levels and ocean chemistry. Here we review shifts in ocean governance regimes from the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the first legal regime for the global ocean, to Sustainable Development Goal 14 and beyond. This second period represents a merging of growing international interest in the ocean as part of the global sustainable development agenda—characterized by a focus on knowledge, collaboration, and the formation of alliances between diverse actors and institutions of environmental governance. To conduct this review, we analyzed literature on changing actors, regimes, and institutional arrangements for ocean governance over time. We conclude with a summary of challenges and opportunities for future ocean governance.
Highlights
Recent decades have seen a rapid increase in the diversity of ocean uses and threats, leading to the Anthropocene ocean: a place fraught with challenges for governance such as resource collapse, pollution, and changing sea levels and ocean chemistry
We explore how these regimes shifted over time, proposing two key eras of ocean governance: the first era emerged with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1982, and the second with the launch of the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), SDG 14: Life Below Water
We identify the adoption of SDG 14 as the starting point of this new era, with governance actors increasingly positioning the ocean as a major development concern
Summary
Among existing international institutions with oversight over the ocean, the United Nations System is the largest, most encompassing, and most influential. National governments facilitate coordination between national and local ocean-related authorities, and promote a collaborative decision-making system linking all ocean stakeholders, including international agencies and civil society (Juda 2003). The work of national NGOs is essential within their base countries in promoting sustainable ocean development They can influence local and national governments in favor of sound ocean management and often serve as a connection between the ocean ecosystems, communities, and the private and public sectors. Governance can occur through community-based initiatives and scientific institutions that help inform and enforce ocean resource management. These actors often contribute technical knowledge and information on traditional practices of indigenous and local communities to policy and decision-making. Among the most prominent commercial activities that rely on the ocean are tourism, fisheries, aquaculture, energy (renewable and nonrenewable), shipping, and seabed mining (Ehlers 2016; Haas et al 2019; Merrie et al 2014; Young 2015), often represented by individual corporations or industry alliances such as the World Ocean Council
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