Governance of the Oceans

Protest groups such as Greenpeace (here seen stopping an illegal fishing boat offloading its cargo) have a role to play in ocean governance. (Flickr Source: Salvatore Barbera)

What specific problems have there been in the past?

The problems that have required governance at sea are wide-ranging - and sometimes surprising! For example, some of my own work has considered the governance of offshore pirate radio broadcasters. During the 1960s many radio stations located themselves on board ships to exploit the international space of the sea. At sea, beyond the rules and laws of land, they were able to transmit political messages back into countries, where they might then influence the people who listened. Governments were very worried in the past about the use of the sea for these kinds of potentially dangerous activities.

However, some of the most significant problems in the past for ocean governance relate to environmental issues such as over-fishing, whaling, and oil spillages. For example, many countries – Iceland, Norway and Japan in particular – have been involved in whaling for commercial and also scientific purposes. However, by the mid-nineteenth century whale populations were at threat and the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was set up in 1982 to try to regulate this activity. Additionally, there have been some very serious oil spill disasters – especially around the UK. In 1967 the vessel ‘Torrey Canyon’ collided with rocks off of the Isle of Scilly and the impact was disastrous for sea habitats, coasts and wildlife. About 120,000 tonnes of crude oil leaked into the ocean. The incident led to changes in the regulation of shipping – the most significant being MARPOL (the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships). Sadly, however, many of the problems of governance in the past still exist today.

Why do you think people have traditionally treated the oceans with less care than the land?

I think that is an interesting question! People have treated the oceans with less care primarily because the oceans are not generally at the forefront of our minds. The majority of us live and work with our feet firmly on dry land. Even if we live by the sea, and our daily life is punctuated by the ebb and flow of waves, it is easy to forget how important the oceans are.

Consider geography for moment. It is an incredibly land-locked discipline. The word geography translates to mean ‘earth-writing’ – and broadly – geographers have been preoccupied with the earth or more specifically the land in their studies. On the one hand this is because the oceans can be difficult, dangerous and expensive to access in order to research them. On the other hand, for a long while geographers have simply deemed other spaces more important to study – typically the spaces that are more central to our daily lives; cities, towns, and so on.

But things are changing – people care more, and geographers definitely care more (there has been a real ‘oceanic’ turn in geographical study in recent years). In part these changes have been driven by an increased awareness of environmental issues – of climate change, sea-level rise, and ecosystem degradation – and an increased desire to be proactive in challenging the harm to our planet. I also think these changes are a consequence of the oceans becoming more and more prominent in daily life through the media. There is hardly a day that goes by without a news story about the oceans – about dredging, over-fishing, shipping disasters, piracy, and more recently migration. The oceans are far more visible now, so perhaps the tide is turning!

What challenges come about as a result of most of the ocean space being a commons?

Challenges arise when the seas are shared spaces, or commons, because we all have a right to them and also a responsibility for them. It is these ‘rights’ and ‘responsibilities’ that pose the real challenges for ocean governance.

For example, there are often challenges over who can lay ‘claim’ to certain areas of the ocean for resource exploitation (and the economic wealth that comes hand-in-hand with it). Nations have often competed for the rights to use ocean spaces for activities such as fishing and this has caused some very significant disputes. There has been much contestation around fishing in the North Sea, between Britain, France and other Northern European countries. Disagreements have been sparked over who has the right to fish, and where. This is because the EEZs can be claimed by more than one country in the North Sea because the countries are located so closely together.

There are also challenges that arise in terms of who is responsible for the oceans. If they are shared spaces it would make sense that we should all have a role in looking after them. Yet sometimes nations, and also industries, can shy away from their responsibilities because the oceans are a commons. We can simply say they are someone else’s concern. Indeed, even though there is a Law of the Sea, there is quite a lot of flexibility in terms of how individual countries actually interpret this into their own laws and actions at sea. This means that not all countries are responsible in their use of the seas for resource exploitation, and it also means that there can be confusion over who should assist when crises occur in our oceans.

Which part of the world’s oceans has the greatest need for governance and why?

I would have to say that every part of the ocean deserves our care and requires governance. However, there are some specific areas of the world’s oceans that currently under particular pressure.

Many would argue that places like the Gulf of Aiden (off of the Horn of Africa) and the Straits of Malacca (near Singapore) have the greatest need for governance in order to make the oceans safe and secure in the face of modern-day piracy. Piracy is a real threat to shipping trade. It disrupts the routes and voyages that are fundamental to the movements of goods around the globe, not to mention putting many lives at risk. There have been concerted efforts in recent years to govern our oceans in this respect.