The Rising Pressures on Ocean Governance

This policy brief examines the evolution of international ocean governance from the 1972 Stockholm Conference to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It details the legal frameworks established to manage marine resources and pollution, the challenges of fragmented sectoral management, and the urgent need for a holistic, ecosystem-based approach to address cumulative stressors like climate change, overfishing, and acidification.

• The marine environment is critical for human survival, providing half of the oxygen humans breathe, 97% of the world's water, and supporting the livelihoods of over three billion people, while facilitating 90% of global trade.
• The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), opened for signature on 10 December 1982, serves as a comprehensive legal framework that divides marine areas into five zones: internal waters, territorial sea, contiguous zones, exclusive economic zones (EEZ), and the high seas.
• Ocean governance is characterized by a complex and fragmented policy environment with overlapping jurisdictions. This is evident in fisheries management, where numerous Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) operate with limited evidence of significant cooperation between adjacent or overlapping bodies.
• Despite the creation of various global and regional instruments, the health of the ocean has declined. The proportion of fish stocks fished at biologically unsustainable levels rose from 10% in 1974 to 34.2% in 2017.
• Modern ocean threats have evolved to include cumulative stressors such as ocean warming, acidification, anthropogenic underwater noise, and a dramatic increase in plastics and microplastics, which require a shift toward integrated management and an ecosystem approach.
• Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14) provides a holistic framework for ocean governance with specific targets to reduce marine pollution by 2025, conserve 10% of coastal and marine areas by 2020, and end overfishing by 2020.
• A significant current development is the negotiation of an international legally binding instrument under UNCLOS for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction, which may address existing policy gaps.

APA

Tsioumanis,, A. (2021). The Rising Pressures on Ocean Governance. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/articles/deep-dive/rising-pressures-ocean-governance

Chicago

Tsioumanis,, Asterios. The Rising Pressures on Ocean Governance. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2021. https://www.iisd.org/articles/deep-dive/rising-pressures-ocean-governance.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Tsioumanis, |first1=Asterios |title=The Rising Pressures on Ocean Governance |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=8 June 2021 |url=https://www.iisd.org/articles/deep-dive/rising-pressures-ocean-governance |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{tsioumanis2021rising, author = {Tsioumanis,, Asterios}, title = {{The Rising Pressures on Ocean Governance}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2021}, month = jun, url = {https://www.iisd.org/articles/deep-dive/rising-pressures-ocean-governance}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }