On, Tuesday 5 November, M. Jean-Noël Barrot, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, presented to the Senate a bill authorizing the ratification of the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, more commonly known as the BBNJ Agreement or High Seas Treaty. The bill was unanimously and definitively adopted by senators following a unanimous vote by deputies on 29 May.
Signed by France at the United Nations headquarters in New York on 20 September 2023, it marks a decisive turning point in the protection of the ocean, building on the legal framework of ocean governance established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (adopted in 1982). It aims to protect 50% of the planet’s surface and two-thirds of the ocean. It will contribute to the goal of protecting at least 30% of the ocean by 2030, set by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
The agreement will come into force after being ratified by 60 States. Its implementation will be monitored and assessed by a Conference of the Parties. France, like the other European Union Member States, is working actively to ensure the treaty comes into force quickly, before the United Nations Ocean Conference, to be held in Nice in June 2025.
Nearly three years after France hosted the One Ocean Summit in Brest in February 2022, and in line with the driving role it has played throughout these years of negotiation, France’s ratification of the agreement confirms its ambitious political commitment to protecting the marine environment, for the benefit of present and future generations and the whole of humanity.