Marine protection law comprises a large number of global and regional conventions, European regulations and national provisions. They provide the legal framework for intergovernmental cooperation and create institutional cooperation structures. Together, they act as “marine governance” for the sustainable management and effective protection of the oceans. The 1982
Convention on the Law of the Sea regulates the rights and obligations of states in dealing with the seas and oceans and their resources. It divides the sea into zones and obliges states to develop rules and procedures for the protection and preservation of the marine environment on a global and regional basis within the framework of competent international organizations. Due to the transboundary nature of the world's oceans, the activities of one state can have an impact on the marine areas of other states. The causes and consequences of marine pollution and loss of marine biodiversity can therefore rarely be attributed to one state alone. The high seas also begin seaward of the exclusive economic zone. No state has exclusive rights of use here. The resources there belong to everyone and no one. Examples of global ocean governance include the
United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda with its seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, in particular SDG 14 “Life below water”), the
International Maritime Organization (IMO) to prevent pollution from shipping, the
International Seabed Authority (ISA) to regulate deep-sea mining, and the bodies of the
UN High Seas Treaty to protect biodiversity on the High Seas. The UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (
Ocean Decade 2021-2030) aims to strengthen global research cooperation, expand the knowledge base about the seas and oceans and develop transformative solutions for the protection and more sustainable use of the oceans. Regional marine conventions are particularly important for marine governance. They form a link between global and national marine protection and allow the coastal states to effectively adapt the regulation of the use and protection of marine waters to regional characteristics and needs. The conventions on the protection of the North-East Atlantic (
OSPAR Convention) and the Baltic Sea (
Helsinki Convention), which were established in 1974 and revised in 1992, are particularly important for the management of German marine waters. While the initial focus was on combating pollution of the oceans from land and sea, since 1992 the emphasis has increasingly shifted towards a holistic ecosystem protection. The OSPAR Commission (OSPAR) and the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) work through expert bodies on the topics of research, monitoring and evaluation of the status of and pressures on the marine environment, derivation of quality and management objectives and measures to regulate the use and protection of marine ecosystems. In order to achieve a good status of the marine regions, the
OSPAR North-East Atlantic Environmental Strategy and the
HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan define the goals and measures to be implemented in the medium-term. The strategy and action plan are updated regularly. The importance of regional cooperation is also recognised by the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). It is the central legal instrument for the protection of European marine waters, including German marine waters, and provides for cooperation between the EU Member States and other coastal states in the respective marine region via the established regional cooperation structures. For the North-East Atlantic, including the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea, the OSPAR and HELCOM bodies form the central platforms for coordinating the implementation of the MSFD in the marine regions. At national level, the federal ministries for the environment, transport and agriculture and the federal states of Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein have joined forces in the
Federal/State Working Group on the North Sea and Baltic Sea (BLANO) in order to cooperate on the protection and, in particular, the implementation of the MSFD for German marine waters. In addition to jointly organising the monitoring and assessment of the status of marine waters, they draw up and update programmes of measures every six years in accordance with the MSFD to achieve and maintain a good status of German marine waters. UBA is involved in the bodies of
OSPAR and
HELCOM as well as within the national co-operation structures of
BLANO, in particular on the pressure aspects of
eutrophication,
contaminants,
marine litter,
underwater noise and
climate change. UBA works on the regulation of activities including
agriculture,
shipping, aquaculture,
offshore energy production,
munitions in the sea,
marine geoengineering and carbon capture and storage (
CCS). UBA continues to participate in global co-operations, e.g. for the regulation of marine geoengineering under the
London Protocol,
deep-sea mining by the International Seabed Authority and in the negotiations for a global UN Plastic Treaty.
Umweltbundesamt
