Description

The international community is negotiating a new legally binding instrument that will govern the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ). The BBNJ covers four major issues – marine genetic resources, including benefit-sharing; area-based management tools, such as marine protected areas; environmental impact assessment; and capacity building and transfer of marine technology. Once concluded, the BBNJ Agreement will no doubt be the most important legal document regarding global ocean governance since the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Building upon participation observation of the fourth and fifth Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity in Areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ IGC4 & 5, 2022) as well as archive studies of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (1973 – 1982), this paper first aims to compare China’s stance during the UNCLOS and BBNJ negotiations. The preliminary findings are that some of those stances are surprisingly similar. For example, in both the UNCLOS and BBNJ negotiations, China stands firmly with the Group of 77 and fully supports developing countries’ positions, such as fair and equitable benefit-sharing from marine genetic resources; compulsory transfer of marine technology from developed countries to developing world. Meanwhile, China does distance herself with developing countries on issues such as how to conduct environmental impact assessment in the high seas. Therefore, the second part of the paper is trying to understand why China takes similar and different positions in these two negotiations. It is particularly an interesting question given China has lifted itself from one of least developed countries in the 1970s to the world’s major economic and military power in 2022.