When the “best available science” is not good enough: The need for supporting scientific research in the United Nations treaty to protect biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction

Abstract

The distant ecosystems of the high seas are growing closer every year as humans create and deploy novel technologies to harvest resources from the open ocean. A new international agreement, the treaty for Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), is intended to ensure the conservation and sustainability of such ecosystems. Among other issue areas, the BBNJ agreement establishes requirements for conducting Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) for activities within (or impacting) Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction. This short communication argues that the EIA process created by the BBNJ treaty will not be effective at achieving the goals of conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction without strong scientific support. The basic problem is that EIAs require more information than what is available for even the most accessible marine ecosystems in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction. We consider three cases of ocean uses – plastic cleanups, deep seabed mining, and mesopelagic fisheries – to demonstrate that available scientific knowledge is insufficient to conduct and evaluate informative EIAs. We suggest three ways that the Scientific and Technical Body established by the BBNJ agreement could be augmented by the Conference of Parties in order to help avoid dysfunction in the EIA process, support scientific discovery, and increase environmental protection.