ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ

Wen Duan successfully defended his thesis on Marine Protected Areas in Areas beyond National Jurisdiction, online at Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ on 10 May 2021. His thesis is entitled: The International Legal Regime relating to Marine Protected Areas in Areas beyond National Jurisdiction: Identifying and Addressing Gaps.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) play an important role in protecting and conserving marine ecosystems and biodiversity. The international legal regime relating to MPAs in ABNJ includes, on the one hand, general obligations relating to the marine environment, marine living resources and marine biodiversity under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and customary international law and, on the other hand, regional regimes (e.g. the CAMLR Convention, the Madrid Protocol, the OSPAR Convention and the Barcelona Convention/SPAs Protocol) through which MPAs in ABNJ have been established and managed. However, there are ‘participatory’, ‘competence’ and ‘geographical’ gaps in this international legal regime. The participatory gap refers to the issue of pacta tertiis. The competence and geographical gaps refer to the lack of comprehensiveness, coherence and consistency of the international legal regime relating to MPAs in ABNJ. The thesis examines the question – how can ‘participatory’, ‘competence’ and ‘geographical’ gaps in the international legal regime related to MPAs in ABNJ be addressed?

concludes that those gaps can only be addressed to a limited extent under existing international law. It may well be, however, that the prospective international legally binding instrument on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction might make further contributions to addressing those gaps.