UN agreement to protect the world's oceans

After decades of negotiations, the countries of the world have agreed to protect the oceans. Despite the ongoing environmental damage, ratification will still take years.

On 4 March in New York, around 160 UN member states agreed for the first time on an agreement to protect biodiversity on the high seas. Over the past 20 years, 26 UN environmental and climate conferences have been held in order to reach agreements that are binding under international law and binding steps for climate and marine protection. So far, however, no legally binding protection rules have been agreed. For example, efforts to stop the discharge of plastic waste into the oceans through binding reduction targets failed at the UN Environment Conference in Nairobi in March 2019. The last UN conference in August 2022 was also unsuccessful.