This weekend while all eyes are on London for the opening of the Summer Olympics, it may be a good time to take a short break from the tube and look east to another important international event, the 2012 World Expo in Yeosu, South Korea. The theme of the expo, which runs until Aug 12, is the protection of the world's oceans and marine ecosystems. The primary purpose is to educate the public about the deteriorating state of the world's oceans. It is hard to imagine a more relevant issue.
This weekend while all eyes are on London for the opening of the Summer Olympics, it may be a good time to take a short break from the tube and look east to another important international event, the 2012 World Expo in Yeosu, South Korea. The theme of the expo, which runs until Aug 12, is the protection of the world's oceans and marine ecosystems. The primary purpose is to educate the public about the deteriorating state of the world's oceans. It is hard to imagine a more relevant issue.
In the final two weeks of the expo the focus will shift to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Yeosu will host an international conference from Aug 11-13 to discuss UNCLOS from an Asian perspective.
First advanced in 1982, with several modifications since, the Law of the Sea essentially lays down a set of rules governing human activities in the world's oceans. Its 320 articles and nine annexes govern all aspects of ocean territories, including maritime trade and transportation, preservation of the marine environment and biological diversity, fishing, the exploitation of natural resources in the seabed, scientific research and the settlement of disputes relating to ocean matters.
One of the major maritime problems demanding concerted international action is overfishing, defined by the website overfishing.org as the practice of commercial and non-commercial fishing which depletes a fishery by catching so many adult fish that not enough remain to breed and replenish the population. The world's fishing fleets are two to three times as large as needed to take present day catches of fish and other marine species, says the website, leading to a lot of waste.
Almost 80% of the world's fisheries are fully or over-exploited, depleted, or in a state of collapse, and worldwide about 90% of the stocks of large predatory fish are already gone. There is hope, however. Closing specific areas off to fishing vessels has proven to be very effective in helping species to rebound.
Another area that must be addressed is raising safety standards for offshore oil exploration and possibly prohibiting such activities in certain areas, such as within the Arctic circle, where several oil companies have plans to begin exploration soon. Shell is waiting on permission which may come any day from the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement to begin drilling in the Chukchi Sea, north of the Bering Strait.
A hot topic in the Asean region is the rival maritime claims involving China and several Asean nations. Last March marked the first ever UNCLOS-mediated maritime boundary dispute when the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea submitted an advisory opinion to settle a dispute between Bangladesh and Myanmar in the Bay of Bengal. Both parties accepted the judgement as fair and balanced.
It was reported that at the recent Asean Summit in Phnom Penh a draft document was drawn up which recommended that UNCLOS be the basis for solutions to disputes in the South China Sea, but was later discarded. While China is a signatory to the treaty, it has never given any indication that it would accept an internationally mediated solution in the South China Sea. As with all international treaties, there are no real mechanisms for enforcement of UNCLOS.
Meanwhile, it is curious that the United States, which has been strident in proposing an international settlement between China and Asean countries in the South China Sea, is one of 18 countries that are not signatories to UNCLOS. Another 16 have signed but not ratified the treaty.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged all 34 absent member states to join the treaty during its 30th anniversary, which will be commemorated in December with a high-level meeting of world leaders at the General Assembly in New York.
Hopefully this year all countries will put their signatures on the Law of the Seas treaty and their hearts behind it.
If just a small fraction of the energy, resources and international cooperation that go into the Olympic Games were channelled into efforts to preserve the integrity of our oceans, the future of the planet would be much more auspicious.
With around 70% of the Earth's surface covered by water (and growing due to global warming), this will remain a blue world; the only question is whether it will be a vibrant or an increasingly lifeless blue.