Researchers say global oceans need legal protective rights

The Earth Law Center’s report, informed by Indigenous worldviews and already existing (but not all-encompassing) laws placed on nature, urges humanity to reconsider our relationship with global oceans to see them as worthy of their own set of rights and protections.

It also strives to address the decade-long pressures we’ve placed on the global seas, such as climate change, overfishing, habitat destruction, and pollution. Acknowledgement of these acts, they believe, is the first step towards justifying stricter measures for conservation.

However, building policies around safeguarding natural environments has never been a simple task.

Last year, the UN launched its own Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development project. It aims to foster a stronger human relationship with ocean environments through science-backed research, data, and new discoveries.

Meanwhile, at annual COP meetings, efforts and policies to protect our oceans are given an entire day of attention. But, to put it in Greta Thunberg’s words, there’s been too much ‘blah blah blah’ at both of these events.

For the most part, little change has come out of either.

For example, an official bill to protect the largest part of our oceans, known as ‘the high seas’ has been in the making for over a decade without a single world leader ever signing the document.

Getting this bill signed was a key goal at this year’s UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon. Regardless of this central focus, leaders failed for the fifth time to agree upon a set of frameworks for ocean conservation. As a result, 95 percent of the world’s oceans continue to be ‘lawless zones’ where overfishing practices take place unchecked.

Let’s hope that this new study by the Earth Law Center, bolstered by information conducted by the UN’s research team, can offer a clearer foundation in favour of ocean governance. Why not, when they’re created from already existing legal frameworks relating to nature?

I, for one, would love to live in a world that views oceans as worthy of protection and conservation – especially when our oceans host a dazzling array of life, most of which humans have yet to discover.

If the price of maintaining a balanced ocean is eating less fish, reducing the use of plastic materials, and treating the ocean with an amplified sense of respect,  it seems a small ask compared to the environmental regulation services the ocean dutifully carries out for us.

Who’s with me?