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Introduction

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The Designation of Marine Protected Areas

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Abstract

Experience witnesses that voluntary pledges of States are not sufficient to protect the marine environment efficiently. Already in 2010, 193 States pledged to designate 10% of the ocean as Marine Protected Areas by 2020. However, in 2020 only 7.72% of the ocean, and 1.18% of the High Sea were protected. Complying with the IUCN goal of establishing 30% of the ocean as Marine Protected Areas by 2030, therefore, necessitates a corresponding legally binding obligation of States to do so. It is thus at the heart of this treatise to investigate if the existing legal framework of the Law of the Sea suffices to provide for a legally binding obligation of States to establish Marine Protected Areas in all areas of the sea. The state of research and course of examination of the investigation that concludingly affirm this question, is being lined out in this chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Goethe (1832), V. 8432–8437–1832 (translated by author).

  2. 2.

    https://www.itlos.org/fileadmin/itlos/documents/statements_of_president/wolfrum/uebersee_club_270208_eng.pdf, p. 6.

  3. 3.

    Molenaar (2007), p. 625.

  4. 4.

    https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/publications/NPEC-Hybrid_English_22-11-17_Digital.pdf, pp. 12, 22; https://news.un.org/en/story/2017/04/556132-feature-uns-mission-keep-plastics-out-oceans-and-marine-life.

  5. 5.

    FAO (2018), pp. 39 f.

  6. 6.

    Schladebach and Esau (2012), p. 142.

  7. 7.

    The Greek mathematician, astronomer and philosopher Thales of Miletus was regarded by many, most notably Aristotle, as the first philosopher in the Greek Tradition. His most famous philosophical position about the nature of all matter is delivered through a passage from Aristotle’s Metaphysics: ‘That of which all things that are consist, the first from which they come to be, the last into which they are resolved (the substance remaining, but changing in its modifications), this they say is the element and this the principle of things, and therefore they think nothing is either generated or destroyed, since this sort of entity is always conserved, [...] nothing else comes to be or ceases to be; for there must be some entity—either one or more than one—from which all other things come to be, it being conserved. [...] Thales, the founder of this type of philosophy, says the principle is water [...]’ (Ross, http://www.classicallibrary.org/aristotle/metaphysics/book01.htm).

  8. 8.

    ICUN WCC-2016-RES-050.

  9. 9.

    O’Leary et al. (2016), p. 401.

  10. 10.

    https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4-international-stateless/2019/04/4475b2c2-updatedgreenpeace_30x30_blueprint_report_web.pdf, p. 9; https://www.cbd.int/doc/press/2017/pr-2017-06-05-mpa-pub-en.pdf; Grafton et al. (2011), p. 478.

  11. 11.

    https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/thematic-areas/marine-protected-areas.

  12. 12.

    FAO (2018), p. 6; Tanaka (2008), p. 204.

  13. 13.

    Tanaka (2008), p. 204.

  14. 14.

    https://geographical.co.uk/nature/oceans/item/3482-do-marine-protected-areas-harm-local-communities (19.02.2021).

  15. 15.

    https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/global/etopo1_ocean_volumes.html.

  16. 16.

    https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/how-technology-can-help-us-achieve-at-least-30-ocean-protection-commentary/.

  17. 17.

    https://unfccc.int/news/climate-commitments-not-on-track-to-meet-paris-agreement-goals-as-ndc-synthesis-report-is-published.

  18. 18.

    Only in 2020, the 12th person ever has visited the Marianna Trench, the deepest known point in the ocean, which finally equals the number of the 12 astronauts that have visited the Moon in 1969 (https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53112621).

  19. 19.

    Proelss (2017), Art. 194, mn. 34; Franke (2007); Molenaar (2007), p. 680; Rothwell et al. (2015), p. 487.

  20. 20.

    Franke (2007); Hossain (2016).

  21. 21.

    Matz (2005), p. 53.

  22. 22.

    Vöneky (2008), pp. 165–197; Dang (2014); Oral (2013); Weidemann (2014); Fitzmaurice (2016), pp. 33–77.

  23. 23.

    United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS), Vol. 1833, No. I-31363; Bundesgesetzblatt (BGBl.) II 1994, p. 1799.

  24. 24.

    Deman Magoffin (2001); Treves (2015), p. 1; Treves (2015), p. 2; Nordquist et al. (2012), p. 885; Rothwell and Stephens (2016), p. 7.

  25. 25.

    Tanaka (2019), pp. 288 f; Tanaka (2008), p. 204; Gjerde and Rulska-Domino (2012), p, 370; https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/resrecrepattach/ELC%20MPA%20Framework%20Sept%204%20%282%29.pdf, p. 7.

  26. 26.

    Proelss (2017), Art. 192, mn. 18 f.; McConnell and Gold (1991), p. 89.

  27. 27.

    Guo (2020), p. 1; Proelss (2017), Art. 194, mn. 34; Druel (2011), p. 8.

  28. 28.

    PCA, South China Sea Arbitration, The Republic of the Philippines v. The People’s Republic of China (in the following: Philippines v. China), (Award), p. 373, para. 941; UNGA A/44/461, 18, p. 5; Tanaka (2019), p. 333; Freestone (2009), p. 45; McConnell and Gold (1991), p. 85.

  29. 29.

    PCA, South China Sea Arbitration, Philippines v. China (Award), p. 373, para. 942; Tanaka (2019), p. 333; Freestone (2009), p. 45; Proelss (2017), Art. 192, mn. 8.

  30. 30.

    PCA, Chagos Marine Protected Area Arbitration, Mauritius v. UK (Award) 2015, p. 211, para. 538 and p. 128 f., para. 320; Proelss (2017), Art. 194, mn. 35; Oude Elferink (2018), p. 445.

  31. 31.

    UNGA A/RES/60/292, Preamble; UNGA A/RES/72/249.

  32. 32.

    https://www.un.org/depts/los/biodiversity/prepcom_files/Chairs_streamlined_non-paper_to_delegations.pdf; https://www.un.org/bbnj/content/background.

  33. 33.

    Deman Magoffin (2001).

  34. 34.

    Tanaka (2019), p. 418; Tanaka (2008), p. 161; Kellerher (1999), pp. xviii f.

  35. 35.

    IUCN GA Rec. 17.38 (1988); Proelss (2017), Art. 194, mn. 34, fn. 99; Jakobsen (2016), p. 7; https://www.cbd.int/doc/publications/cbd-ts-13.pdf, p. 7; Wolf (2012), p. 1057, para. 2.

  36. 36.

    Tanaka (2019), p. 47; Rothwell and Stephens (2016), p. 1; Treves (2015), p. 11.

  37. 37.

    https://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/koh_english.pdf; Mann Borgese (1978), p. 371; https://ioc.unesco.org/topics/law-sea; UNGA A/74/PV.42, p. 12.

  38. 38.

    PCA, South China Sea Arbitration, Philippines v. China (Award), p. 373, para. 941.

  39. 39.

    https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/exclusive-deep-sea-mining-rules-be-fast-tracked-push-nauru-source-2021-06-25/.

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    Anna von Rebay

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von Rebay, A. (2023). Introduction. In: The Designation of Marine Protected Areas. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29175-3_1

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