Part I Assessing the UN Institutional Structure for Global Ocean Governance: The UN’s Role in Global Ocean Governance, 1 The Role of the United Nations, including its Secretariat in Global Ocean Governance

Author(s):  
Goettsche-Wanli Gabriele

This chapter examines the role of the United Nations and its related institutions for global ocean governance, including those established by the entry into force of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It first considers the main issues that these institutions have addressed, ranging from sustainable fisheries, via ecosystem protection, to marine biodiversity conservation; and more recently, maritime security. It then argues that the impacts of climate change have arguably not been directly addressed by either the global ocean governance regime, as it is currently constituted, nor by the climate change regime, at least until recent developments through the 2015 Paris Agreement relating to adaptation and mitigation measures in direct response to sea-level rise and the effects of ocean acidification. The chapter proceeds by discussing UNCLOS and its related legal instruments, UN Conferences and Summit on sustainable development, and the role played by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in global ocean governance.

This chapter discusses the role of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) in global ocean governance. The UNWTO is a specialized agency of the United Nations that serves as a global forum for tourism policy issues and helps to ensure that Member States, tourist destinations and the business community maximize the positive economic, social and cultural effects of tourism and fully reap its benefits, while minimizing its negative social and environmental impacts. It has three primary objectives: to promote safe and seamless travel, enhance the role of technology in tourism, and link growth and sustainability and promote tourism as a tool for development. After providing a general overview of the UNWTO’s aims, structure and governance, and membership, the chapter examines its work with respect to ocean governance and sea-related tourism, along with the ways in which it promotes sustainable development of tourism.


Author(s):  
Millicay Fernanda

This chapter examines the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ). It first provides an overview of the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom), convened by the UN General Assembly to make recommendations on the elements for a possible future multilateral agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The material scope of the PrepCom is constituted by ‘the package’ agreed upon in 2011 and includes the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction. The chapter discusses the challenges of the package, focusing on two interlinked dimensions of the package plus the big issue that underlies it. It also considers two main tasks facing PrepCom: the first is to clearly identify all elements of each substantive set of issues composing the package, and the second task is to understand the implications of each element of these three substantive sets of issues and the inter-linkages between them.


Author(s):  
Rayfuse Rosemary

This chapter assesses the contribution of Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs) to the achievement of the principles of conservation and cooperation articulated in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC). It begins with a brief historical introduction to the institutionalisation of cooperation through RFMOs and an examination of their structural limitations. It then considers the role and contribution of RFMOs in developing the specific content of the obligation to conserve, including the implications for RFMOs of the increasing recognition of the need to protect, conserve, and manage marine biodiversity in general. Finally, it examines the challenges to RFMOs posed by climate change.


Author(s):  
Corell Hans

This chapter discusses the contributions of the United Nations to the development of the law of the sea during the period following the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC) in 1982. It covers preparing for the entry into force of the LOSC; informal consultations relating to the implementation of Part XI of the LOSC; establishing the Convention institutions after the entry into force of the LOSC; the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea (DOALOS); United Nations conferences on the human environment; the role of the General Assembly; the Meeting of States Parties to the LOSC; sustainable fisheries and straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks; the Oceans and Coastal Areas Network (UN-Oceans); the United Nations open-ended informal consultative process on oceans and the law of the sea; the so-called Regular Process; the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction; and piracy on the agenda of the Security Council.


Author(s):  
Henry Shue

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change adopted in Rio de Janeiro at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in June 1992 establishes no dates and no dollars. No dates are specified by which emissions are to be reduced by the wealthy states, and no dollars are specified with which the wealthy states will assist the poor states to avoid an environmentally dirty development like our own. The convention is toothless because throughout the negotiations in the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee during 1991 to 1992, the United States played the role of dentist: whenever virtually all the other states in the world (with the notable exceptions of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait) agreed to convention language with teeth, the United States insisted that the teeth be pulled out. The Clinton administration now faces a strategic question: should the next step aim at a comprehensive treaty covering all greenhouse gases (GHGs) or at a narrower protocol covering only one, or a few, gases, for example, only fossil-fuel carbon dioxide (CO2)? Richard Stewart and Jonathan Wiener (1992) have argued for moving directly to a comprehensive treaty, while Thomas Drennen (1993) has argued for a more focused beginning. I will suggest that Drennen is essentially correct that we should not try to go straight to a comprehensive treaty, at least not of the kind advocated by Stewart and Wiener. First I would like to develop a framework into which to set issues of equity or justice of the kind introduced by Drennen. It would be easier if we faced only one question about justice, but several questions are not only unavoidable individually but are entangled with one another. In addition, each question can be given not simply alternative answers but answers of different kinds. In spite of this multiplicity of possible answers to the multiplicity of inevitable and interconnected questions, I think we can lay out the issues fairly clearly and establish that commonsense principles converge to a remarkable extent upon what ought to be done, at least for the next decade or so.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 41-50
Author(s):  
Nikolai Kostenko

The aim of the study is to develop the main approaches to providing states with international information security. The role of the Russian Federation and other states in advances in information and telecommunications within the framework of international security is being investigated. Attention is drawn to the rapid formation and use of information and communication technologies, which have made up a large and lasting dependence of adverse government mechanisms on real cyber technologies and has been the reason new threats. The role of the Russian Federation in the purposeful work of shaping the United Nations doctrine on world information international security is being investigated. The UN General Assemblys Resolution A/RES/56/19, Advances in Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security adopted on 7 January 2002, endorsed the idea of researching current and possible threats to information security and drawing attention to the likely collective measures to eliminate them. The Russian Federations proposal for education, the composition of government experts, which could concentrate and discuss the most important stages that aim the subjects of international law to participate in the UN General Assembly Resolution of December 8, 2003 No. 58/32 Achievements in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security are analyzed. The article draws particular attention to the document of the UN General Assembly A/55/140 which outlined five principles on international information security. The article examines in detail the resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly Advances in Information and Telecommunications in the context of International Security from December 4, 1998 to October 22, 2018 to ensure international information security. The novelty of the study is the conclusions and proposals on problematic issues in the field of international information security, which would contribute to the adoption of a single international UN Convention, which would contain a conceptual apparatus, objectives, objectives, types of threats, priorities and mechanisms for their implementation, as well as provisions on the responsibility of States in the international information space.


Author(s):  
Higgins Dame Rosalyn, DBE, QC ◽  
Webb Philippa ◽  
Akande Dapo ◽  
Sivakumaran Sandesh ◽  
Sloan James

The UN General Assembly may be described as the world’s leading forum for political discussion. It currently has 193 member states—nearly four times its original membership of 51. In 2005, the General Assembly established an Ad Hoc Working Group on the Revitalization of the General Assembly and has re-established the group annually. A major preoccupation of the Working Group appears to be relations between the General Assembly and the Security Council, including a concern that the latter organ has encroached on the work of the former. This chapter discusses the General Assembly’s membership, voting, and procedure; meetings, regular, and special sessions; subordinate organs; voting; the role of the President; functions; limitations; and Article 11(2) of the UN Charter.


Author(s):  
Fitzmaurice Malgosia

This chapter examines the role of the United Nations (UN) in fulfilling the concept of intergenerational equity as it relates to ocean governance. The concept of intergenerational equity is inexorably linked to the principle of sustainable development. Three basic principles underpin intergenerational equity: conservation of options, conservation of quality, and conservation of access. The chapter first considers the concept of intergenerational equity within the context of sustainable development and environmental protection before discussing international conventions and soft law instruments including the principle of intergenerational equity. It then explains how the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) takes into account intergenerational equity and goes on to review national and international case-law concerning intergenerational equity and the rights of future generations. It also analyses constitutional and institutional protection of the rights of future generations and concludes with an assessment of UN approaches addressing the needs of future generations.


Author(s):  
Freestone David

This chapter examines the role of the international climate change regime in global ocean governance, with emphasis on the cross-cutting set of global ocean governance issues arising from human-induced climate change. It first provides an overview of the international legal regime governing climate change before discussing the two major anthropogenic impacts on the oceans, namely: warming/acidification and sea level rise. It then considers other governance issues such as greenhouse gas emissions from shipping, geoengineering, and blue carbon, suggesting that addressing these issues are beyond the competence of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The chapter stresses the need for greater, deeper and ultimately better co-ordinated leadership on the most significant global environmental challenge facing the world today.


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