Regional level implementation of Chapter 17: the UNEP approach to the Mediterranean

Abstract

The Mediterranean was the first sea in which the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Regional Seas Programme was initiated. An Action Plan was launched (1975) and a Convention was adopted (1976) to pursue, on the regional scale, the goals defined by the UN Conference on the Human Environment (1972). In 1995 the Mediterranean was the first sea to move towards a sustainable development-aimed programme by the adoption of a new Convention, legally regarded as the amendment of the 1976 Convention, and the correlated adoption of the Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP), Phase II. Thus, the Mediterranean has always served as an arena in which to define goals and targets and to design legal and institutional tools. In the current phase it is useful to focus on the evolution of the Mediterranean co-operation carried out in the framework of the Regional Seas Programme putting it in relation to the goals designed by, as well as the crucial issues highlighted in, Chapter 17 of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) Agenda 21. In this respect, the innovative role of the new system consisting of the 1995 Convention and the Mediterranean Action Plan, Phase II, is presented and discussed and its basic effectiveness is evaluated as regards the decision-making process through which it has been designed, the role of its geographical coverage and that of the existing framework of maritime national jurisdictional zones. Moving from this, the subject areas that UNCED Agenda 21, Chapter 17, assumed as closely relevant to the pursuit of sustainable development of the ocean, including regional seas, are considered on the Mediterranean scale with the aim of realising how and to what extent they are being effectively pursued. This analysis, carried out with close reference to the materials from the Ninth Ordinary Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention (Barcelona, 5–8 June 1995) and the Conference of the Plenipotentiaries on the Barcelona Convention (Barcelona, 9–10 June 1995), leads us to believe that the complexity of the Convention/MAP system, together with the different attitudes from the Mediterranean states, while giving shape to the prospects of promising outcomes, is characterised by increasing risks of a decline of effectiveness.