Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction Research Articles

The role of environmental impact assessments in the establishment and management of marine protected areas under the UNCLOS and the BBNJ Agreement

AbstractThis article analyses the role of environmental impact assessments (EIAs) in establishing and managing marine protected areas (MPAs) in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the Agreement under the UNCLOS on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement). The analysis is conducted by discussing Articles 194 and 205–206 of the UNCLOS and Articles 27–28 and 30 of the BBNJ Agreement. It concludes that the interaction between EIA and MPAs in ABNJ is not only desirable but also critical for the success of MPAs. The BBNJ Agreement operationalises the role of EIAs in establishing and managing MPAs under the UNCLOS by (1) granting EIA an important role in assessing the susceptibility of an MPA to the impact of certain human activities and (2) factoring part of indicative criteria for identifying potential MPAs in the list of criteria to be considered for conducting EIA screening.

ChatBBNJ: a question–answering system for acquiring knowledge on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction

The marine biodiversity in Areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), encompassing approximately two-thirds of the global ocean, is persistently declining. In 2023, the agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) was officially adopted. Implementing the BBNJ Agreement has the potential to effectively meet global needs for preserving marine biodiversity. Nevertheless, the implementation requires dealing with thousands of legal clauses, and the parties participating in the process lack adequate means to acquire knowledge connected to BBNJ. This paper introduces ChatBBNJ, a highly efficient question-answering system that combines a novel data engineering technique with large language models (LLMs) of Natural Language Processing (NLP). The system aims to efficiently provide stakeholders with BBNJ-related knowledge, thereby facilitating and enhancing their comprehension and involvement with the subject matter. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed ChatBBNJ exhibits superior expertise in the BBNJ domain, outperforming baseline models in terms of precision, recall, and F1-scores. The successful deployment of the suggested system is expected to greatly assist stakeholders in acquiring BBNJ knowledge and facilitating the effective implementation of the BBNJ Agreement. Therefore, this is expected to contribute to the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in ABNJ.

Assessing the Legal Framework for Marine Protected Areas in High Seas: Challenges and Prospects under the UN BBNJ Agreement

Oceans, integral to a healthy global ecosystem, are protected partly through marine protected areas (MPAs). Despite numerous MPAs within national jurisdictions, the Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) remain significantly neglected. Currently, most MPAs in ABNJ are governed by the OSPAR or CAMLR frameworks, which exhibit substantial deficiencies due to the fragmented state of international laws. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), for instance, offers limited provisions for ABNJ. To address these legislative gaps, negotiations for the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) were initiated, leading to the successful adoption of the BBNJ Agreement in March 2023. This paper critically examines the existing regional treaties overseeing high-seas MPAs and explores the innovative approaches introduced by the BBNJ Agreement for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in ABNJ. The analysis concludes that the BBNJ Agreement provides a more comprehensive and sustainable management framework for high-seas MPAs, thus effectively overcoming the limitations inherent in regional treaties.

Emergency Marine Protected Areas Under the BBNJ Agreement: A Feasible Solution for Emergencies in ABNJ?

An emergency marine protected area (EMPA) refers to a type of area-based management tool (ABMT) designated on an interim basis with immediate effect, pending the establishment of formal marine protected areas (MPAs). The marine environment is currently under an increasing threat of abrupt extreme events. However, formal MPAs are not an ideal tool to render an emergency response owing to their time-consuming procedures for adoption and hindrance from competing interests. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and other international agreements cannot provide a comprehensive solution to combat various unforeseeable extreme events. Facing this situation, the development of an EMPA is proposed. The BBNJ Agreement includes an article providing for emergency measures in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ). It concludes that establishing EMPAs could be an effective solution to marine environmental emergencies. The new Agreement offers hope for implementing EMPAs in ABNJ. In addition, EMPAs are expected to play an important role in ecosystem recovery after climatic extreme events in a timely and flexible manner in the context of climate change.

A risk assessment for the remote ocean: the case of the South East Atlantic

Degradation of the natural world and associated ecosystem services is attributed to a historical failure to include its ‘value’ in decision-making. Uncertainty in the quantification of the relationship between natural capital ‘assets’ that give rise to critical societal benefits and people is one reason for the omission of these values from natural resource management. As this uncertainty increases in marine systems and further still with distance from the coast, the connection between society and natural capital assets is less likely to be included adequately in decision-making. Natural capital assets of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ), including those of the deep sea, are distant but are known to generate many benefits for society, from the diffuse and broad-scale benefits of climate regulation to the provision of wild fish for food. While our understanding of the precise relationships (the status of asset stocks, ecosystem functions and processes) that control the availability of ecosystem services and the flows of benefits is limited, this does not preclude opening a discourse on how these natural capital assets could best be managed to continue to benefit society. Here we apply a natural capital approach to the South East Atlantic ABNJ, one of the least scientifically understood regions of the planet, and develop a framework for risk assessment. We do this by describing the benefit flows from the natural capital assets of the region, appraising how activities are creating pressures on these flows and whether the controls for these pressures protect them. Our risk register highlights how governance currently favours the protection of direct (extractive) benefit flows from natural capital assets of the region, which are primarily targeted for financial benefit. Without a systems-based framework that can account for the cumulative pressures on natural capital assets their status, associated ecosystem services and benefits are at risk. Such an approach is essential to capture and protect the foundational and often diffuse connections between marine natural capital and global society.

Dynamic Ocean Management in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction

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.

Common Asset Trusts for blue commons stewardship

There are critical direct and indirect, positive and negative links between the ocean and human wellbeing at multiple scales. Many of the ecosystem services the ocean provides to humans, including fisheries, are common pool resources that are non-excludable but rival or subtractive. Others, including climate regulation, are non-rival and non-excludable pure public goods. Resources without any restriction or condition for their use, are known as open-access resources. Unrestricted access generally leads to unsustainable use. Many ocean ecosystems are open access, blue commons. They range in spatial scale from national, such as mangroves and coral reefs, to the open seas within Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), to Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ). There are also many species that migrate between national jurisdictions or between national and global blue commons. The sustainable stewardship of these blue commons is one of the most important current global governance challenges. We describe in detail how to create a Common Asset Trust (CAT) for blue commons and how such a system would operate. Finally, we propose CATs to manage blue commons at different spatial scales, including coastal reefs, EEZs, and ABNJ.

China's Marine Protected Areas Legal Challenges and Global Engagement within and Beyond National Jurisdiction

This paper explores the legal challenges and global engagements surrounding China's Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) within its national jurisdiction and beyond, including its participation in the negotiations concerning marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ). With over three decades of MPA management experience, China has established more than 250 sites, yet needs to improve its effectiveness. The study highlights obstacles such as the absence of systematic approaches, inadequate regulatory frameworks, governance inefficiencies, and conflicts between conservation and exploitation interests. Furthermore, the paper examines China's participation in international discussions on marine biodiversity, particularly its involvement in negotiations related to MPAs under the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (the BBNJ Agreement). By addressing these issues, this study contributes to informed decision-making and effective strategies for marine conservation in China and globally.

Engaging artisanal fishers and processors from coastal states into RFMO discussions lead to agenda shifts toward science-based management. The case of the Jumbo Flying Squid fishery and the role of CALAMASUR

Artisanal and small-scale fisheries and the livelihoods of entire fishery dependent communities often rely on the catch and processing of straddling fish stocks. These stocks, as they expand to Marine Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ), are usually subject to different management regimes —within Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) by coastal states and by Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) in the high seas. While RFMO decisions can impact the livelihoods of entire coastal communities, artisanal and small-scale fishers are rarely engaged in regional decision-making fora. The South Pacific Jumbo Flying Squid (JFS), is mainly fished by artisanal operators in Chile, Peru and Ecuador, along with a growing Distant Water Fleet operating within ABNJ. In view of the lack of attention placed by the South Pacific RFMO (SPRFMO) to JFS management in the high seas, in 2018, the most important artisanal fishing cooperatives and processors from Chile, Peru and Ecuador, joined together to promote improvements in RFMO policies towards a sustainable use of the resource. In this paper we review the impact of the Committee for the Sustainable Management of the JFS in the South Pacific (CALAMASUR) in influencing the RFMO agenda. We conclude that CALAMASUR has influenced the SPRFMO agenda by triggering an increased focus on squid as well as by driving attention to the group's 5 priority improvement areas. Results suggests that resource users' engagement in RFMO governance can help advance RFMOs towards meeting the objectives set in their founding arrangements. The paper calls for improving RFMO governance by developing co-management mechanisms that enable effective participation of artisanal and small-scale fishers from coastal states in decisions affecting their livelihoods.

Filling the data gaps: Transferring models from data-rich to data-poor deep-sea areas to support spatial management

Spatial management of the deep sea is challenging due to limited available data on the distribution of species and habitats to support decision making. In the well-studied North Atlantic, predictive models of species distribution and habitat suitability have been used to fill data gaps and support sustainable management. In the South Atlantic and other poorly studied regions, this is not possible due to a massive lack of data. In this study, we investigated whether models constructed in data-rich areas can be used to inform data-poor regions (with otherwise similar environmental conditions). We used a novel model transfer approach to identify to what extent a habitat suitability model for Desmophyllum pertusum reef, built in a data-rich basin (North Atlantic), could be transferred usefully to a data-poor basin (South Atlantic). The transferred model was built using the Maximum Entropy algorithm and constructed with 227 presence and 3064 pseudo-absence points, and 200 m resolution environmental grids. Performance in the transferred region was validated using an independent dataset of D. pertusum presences and absences, with assessments made using both threshold-dependent and -independent metrics. We found that a model for D. pertusum reef fitted to North Atlantic data transferred reasonably well to the South Atlantic basin, with an area under the curve of 0.70. Suitable habitat for D. pertusum reef was predicted on 20 of the assessed 27 features including seamounts. Nationally managed Marine Protected Areas provide significant protection for D. pertusum reef habitat in the region, affording full protection from bottom trawling to 14 of the 20 suitable features. In areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), we found four seamounts that provided suitable habitat for D. pertusum reef to be at least partially protected from bottom trawling, whilst two did not fall within fisheries closures. There are factors to consider when developing models for transfer including data resolution and predictor type. Nevertheless, the promising results of this application demonstrate that model transfer approaches stand to provide significant contributions to spatial planning processes through provision of new, best available data. This is particularly true for ABNJ and areas that have previously undergone little scientific exploration such as the global south.

Protecting the Salas y Gomez and Nazca Ridges: A review of policy pathways for creating conservation measures in the international waters of the Southeast Pacific

Seamount ecosystems host ecologically important species, including many that are found nowhere else on Earth. The Salas y Gomez and Nazca Ridges, two adjacent seamount chains in the Southeast Pacific, are biodiversity hotspots marked by the highest levels of marine endemism on Earth. Historically isolated from many human activities, this region has produced a unique biodiversity and provides an excellent opportunity for protecting a global biodiversity hotspot before it is degraded. However, no legal protection mechanism currently exists for comprehensively protecting areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) of the Salas y Gomez and Nazca Ridges. After years of negotiations at the United Nations for a legally binding instrument to address conservation in ABNJ, the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement was finally agreed in March 2023. While this Agreement may provide one avenue for protecting the high seas, the Agreement has yet to be adopted and ratification may take several years. As it stands, conservation efforts in ABNJ will rest on sectoral bodies primarily set to manage large-scale industries like fishing, shipping, and mining, but that do have the ability to enact conservation measures other than restricting these industrial activities. Our study provides an overview of the major international organizations managing activities in the ABNJ of the Salas y Gomez and Nazca Ridges, identifies current conservation measures, and maps out potential policy pathways for creating conservation measures in this unique region. Our synthesis focused on identifying conservation procedures within the documents of international organizations and applying their rules and procedures to implement conservation measures. We identify three potential pathways. A regional and national pathway that relies on cooperation among international organizations spearheaded by the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization (SPRFMO), and an international pathway through the BBNJ Agreement.

Broad-scale benthic habitat classification of the South Atlantic

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) has become a priority for many states wanting to develop national blue economy plans and meet international obligations in response to the increasing cumulative impacts of human activities and climate change. In areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), MSP is proposed as part of a package of solutions for multi-sectoral management at the ocean basin scale. To facilitate planning, maps showing the spatial distribution of marine biological diversity are required. In areas lacking data, like the South Atlantic, environmental proxies can be used to predict these distributions. We undertook broad-scale benthic habitat classification of the South Atlantic, employing two top-down approaches spanning from national waters to ABNJ. The first was non-hierarchical and clustered groups of environmental variables prior to combination; the second was hierarchical and clustered Principal Components of environmental variables. Areas of agreement between the two approaches were identified and results compared with existing national and global classifications and published biodiversity patterns. We highlight several habitat classes we can be cautiously confident represent variation in biological diversity, such as topographic features, frontal systems and some abyssal basins. We also identify critical gaps in our knowledge of regional biogeography and advocate for collaborative effort to compile benthic species records and promote further exploration of the region to address these gaps. These insights into the distribution of habitats have the potential to support sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction, enable transboundary and ocean basin scale management, and empower nations to make progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals.

Sustainable Management of Marine Biodiversity in Areas beyond National Jurisdiction by Establishing Protected Areas on the High Seas: A Chinese Perspective

Due to the several undiscovered and valuable gene and mineral resources, marine biodiversity is considered a strategic asset for socio-economic development. However, marine biodiversity is facing grave threats, particularly in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), where sustainable management and effective implementation of governance is yet lacking. Here existing international legal regimes with the protection of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction are briefly summarized, focusing on potential factors influencing China’s policymaking on the construction of marine protected areas on the high seas. It is concluded that China should actively participate in international negotiations and seriously assess the impacts of establishing these protected areas before making its own decision in order to achieve the sustainable conservation and management of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction. In addition, the policy’s future research directions will be the practical challenges for China to establish and manage the marine protected areas on the high seas, especially in the selection of locations and the model of management.

Overlapping and fragmentation in the protection and conservation of the marine environment in areas beyond national jurisdiction

Marine areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) are under the growing threat of cumulative anthropogenic impacts including fishing, shipping, energy extraction, certain forms of marine scientific research, and the imminent deep seabed mining that prefigure a critical scenario in terms of biodiversity loss and environmental degradation. This article offers a contribution to the discussion on the best approaches to effectively implement environmental protection and conservation in ABNJ, also in the light of ongoing intergovernmental negotiations on the conclusion of an agreement implementing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity in ABNJ. The paper first analyzes the current legal gaps in the protection and conservation of ABNJ and the tools developed by some regional and universal regimes to preserve vulnerable marine ecosystems. It then presents two case studies, relating to hydrothermal vent fields of the Mid Atlantic Ridge (Lost City) and the South-West Indian Ridge (Longqi field) to discuss the fragmentation of the legal regimes applicable to ABNJ as well as the difficult cooperation among the regional, global and sectoral frameworks involved in their governance. The case studies show that a coordination mechanism, based on mutual recognition of the protection and conservation measures taken by each competent organization in a specific field, is of utmost urgency. Only a more structured system of cooperation among States and international organizations, that the new implementation agreement will hopefully develop, will allow for the identification of the most appropriate tools for the protection of a given marine area from the cumulative impacts of human activities.

China’s choice on the participation in establishing marine protected areas in areas beyond national jurisdiction

Currently, the issue of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) has made a lot of significant progress in both international legislative process and national practices. As a State Party to UNCLOS, China has actively participated in the negotiations of the BBNJ agreement, in which the marine protected areas (MPAs) as one of the area-based management tools have been an issue of great concern. It is considered to be a feasible and direct conservation tool. In order to evaluate the possibility of China’s participation in the establishment of MPAs in the future, this paper analyzes the drivers for and limits on China’s involvement in the construction of MPAs in the context of the current Chinese situation. And it also puts forward possible countermeasures on how to deal with the challenges brought by the MPAs in ABNJ to China. It is concluded that there is a great possibility that China will eventually choose to participate in the establishment of MPAs in ABNJ as China advocates the concept of a maritime community with a shared future.

The Necessity of a Global Legal Framework for Protection of Marine Biodiversity in Areas beyond National Jurisdiction

This paper will consider whether the ‘International Legally Binding Instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction’ (BBNJ agreement) could provide the basis for an integrated framework for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in the area beyond national jurisdiction, and if in doing so, it could in turn give any impetus to the obligation of States to protect the marine environment stipulated in Article 192 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). To answer this question, Section 2 will briefly explain the gaps in two relevant international treaties for conservation and sustainable use of the marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ). Section 3 will clarify the binding character of the BBNJ agreement in comparison to the existing relevant international agreements, such as the 1995 Fish Stocks Agreement and the Part xi Agreement. Section 4 will analyse provisions in area-based management tools and the environment impact assessment stipulated in the BBNJ draft text, to assess their role as an important basis for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity. Based on these analyses of the BBNJ draft text, Section 5 will then turn to consider the necessary elements that stand to play potentially significant roles as legally-binding tools for the conservation and sustainable use of the marine biological diversity of ABNJ. Three such elements are to be identified, the first being the binding effect of the due diligence obligation imposed by the BBNJ agreement, which could serve as a global tool for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity. The second element is the means to ensure effective implementation of the BBNJ agreement, wherein the institutional framework would play a decisive role. The third element is the characteristics of the due diligence obligation referred to in the first point. As a further consideration, Section 6 will also specifically examine the due diligence obligation for the protection of marine biological diversity of ABNJ.

Common Heritage of Mankind Principles Applied to Marine Genetic Resources in Areas beyond National Jurisdiction

The current political tension among developed states and developing nations regarding the exploration, exploitation, benefit-sharing, and conservation of marine genetic resources (MRGs) in ungoverned areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) requires a new marine, regulative regime, which is considered as the premise for the creation of the international consensus of promulgating the ‘Common Heritage of Mankind’ principle (CHM). This study employed desk research methods to synthesize, compare, and analyze UNCLOS (1982), Nagoya Protocol (2014), ongoing ILBI sessions, and other recent studies to figure out the regulatory gap within the Law of the Sea under UNCLOS. By carefully generalizing and scrutinizing the documentation, the study strongly emphasizes the necessity to implement the CHM principle in ABNJ instead of promoting the concept of ‘first come, first served’ basis for the sake of the equitable sharing of benefits, and the conservation of MGRs in ABNJ for the current and future generations. The study also provides the connotations of CHM principle, which serves theoretical basis for some marine management approaches. Consequently, these perspectives stem from a representative developing state with a long coastal line – Vietnam. The general, theoretical, and practical viewpoints would significantly contribute to current and future international law-making process with respect to the formulation of a new legal marine regime for regulating the exploitation, equitable access, and conservation of MGRs in ABNJ according to the ideal concept of CHM principle thereof.

Common Heritage of Mankind Principles Applied To Marine Genetic Resources In Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction: Some Legal Reflections

The current political tension among developed states and developing nations regarding the exploration, exploitation, benefit-sharing, and conservation of marine genetic resources (MRGs) in ungoverned areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) requires a new marine, regulative regime, which is considered as the premise for the creation of the international consensus of promulgating the ‘Common Heritage of Mankind’ principle (CHM). This study employed desk research methods to synthesize, compare, and analyze UNCLOS (1982), Nagoya Protocol (2014), ongoing ILBI sessions, and other recent studies to figure out the regulatory gap within the Law of the Sea under UNCLOS. By carefully generalizing and scrutinizing the documentation, the study strongly emphasizes the necessity to implement the CHM principle in ABNJ instead of promoting the concept of ‘first come, first served’ basis for the sake of the equitable sharing of benefits, and the conservation of MGRs in ABNJ for the current and future generations. The study also provides the connotations of CHM principle, which serves theoretical basis for some marine management approaches. Consequently, these perspectives stem from a representative developing state with a long coastal line –Vietnam. The general, theoretical, and practical viewpoints would significantly contribute to current and future international law-making process with respect to the formulation of a new legal marine regime for regulating the exploitation, equitable access, and conservation of MGRs in ABNJ according to the ideal concept of CHM principle thereof.

Wind Energy on the High Seas: Regulatory Challenges for a Science Fiction Future

This paper aims to study the current regulation and governance of wind energy turbines on the high seas and detect regulatory challenges. We focus on the existing regulatory framework to develop marine wind farms in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), the nature of wind farms and wind turbines in said areas, and which governance schemes and institutions ought to coordinate and regulate any future marine wind energy development. Our research shows that under public international law, the deployment of wind turbines on (most parts of) the high seas for all States is possible, but many issues still remain, either thinly regulated or unanswered. We inquire where, by whom, and how can marine wind parks be built on the high seas according to public international law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (the LOSC). Lastly, we evaluate the possible role of marine spatial planning (MSP) in developing wind energy on the high seas.

Marine renewable energy technologies on the high seas: challenges and opportunities to strengthen international environmental and renewable energy governance

Marine areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) offer an extensive area of about half of the Earth’s surface with an unparalleled potential for the use of marine renewable energy (MRE) technologies to provide energy security and competitiveness to States and in the fight against climate change. However, the expansion of MRE technologies into ABNJ as well as the environmental impacts associated with their development can entail risks and threats to security and biodiversity. This paper focuses on highlighting key regulatory and governing challenges associated with the deployment of MRE technologies in ABNJ as well as an initial exploration of regulatory alternatives and forms of governance that could provide an effective way to enhance the sustainable and secure development of the MRE industry in ABNJ.