A draft text handed over Sunday August 21 to the delegates of the intergovernmental conference responsible for preparing, in New York, the treaty was positively welcomed by negotiators.
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“The oceans die and people pay the price.” In New York, the alarming messages follow one another on the night of Sunday August 21, projected into giant letters by Greenpeace on the United Nations Building and the facade of Guggenheim Museum. Face in close-up of activists and celebrities like Jane Fonda challenge the delegates of the Intergovernmental Conference responsible for preparing the Treaty for the Protection of Biodiversity on the High Sea, in other words the immensity which extends beyond 200 miles nautical (370 kilometers) of the coasts. A technical text, but which will nevertheless “determine the fate of our blue planet for the centuries to come”, insists the collective of NGO High Seas Alliance.
Happening and petitions for an ambitious treaty – one of which has collected five million signatures -, these organizations make their pressure on ambassadors and lawyers who started their second week of negotiations in New York. This fifth work session, which should end on August 26, is planned to be the last. It marks the culmination of a process started in December 2017, after years of informal discussions.
The Secretary of State for the Sea, Hervé Berville, himself went to New York, on August 15 and 16, with substantially the same message as the NGOs. “France and the European Union want a universal character agreement to be concluded in 2022, he says. I hope that at least forty or fifty countries will be ready to ratify it. There is a political momentum Not to be missed: we have no time to waste, this implies launching all our strengths in the battle. “Stressing that he is undoubtedly the only minister to have moved, he assures that he does not Has stopped calling for his counterparts on the phone to convince them. “We advance well … but the subjects are not easy”, he admits
sustainable use of resources
A draft text given to the delegates on Sunday August 21 was positively welcomed by the negotiators, according to the NGOs present. They say they are rather optimistic, even if the concrete variations of the treaty remain largely between hooks, giving rise to still contradictory interpretations on the part of the States. But the effect of the “high ambition coalition” in favor of the adoption of a treaty in 2022 is noticeable. Launched in Brest (Finistère) in February, this coalition was strengthened in July in Lisbon during the second United Nations conference on the oceans, and now brings together around fifty states, including the European Union.
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