ABSTRACT
Imagine U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, getting prepared for the negotiation on the UN agreement to protect high seas biodiversity. The high seas account for two thirds of the ocean surface and a vast store of biodiversity. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) provides an international legal framework for the usage of high seas, focusing primarily on such issues as the maintainance of fisheries, navigation, pollution and underwater mining. Biodiversity has been a marginal issue (DBT, 2012). The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), however, has set a target to increase coastal and marine protected areas from the current two per cent to ten per cent of these areas by 2020 (CBD, 2011). The implementation of this target raises several questions that need to be negotiated among the parties of the conventions of UNCLOS and CBD.
