Portugal supports treaty as ‘race is on’ to gather ratifications by next month
Portugal has at last ratified the UN High Seas Treaty – a document which opened for state signatures in September 2023, but which needs at least 60 countries to then ‘ratify’ those signatures to help save the world’s oceans.
According to the High Seas Treaty Tracker, Portugal’s ‘ratification’ has still not been logged, but it has been announced in Portugal, in state gazette Diário da República.
As Lusa explains, this is an agreement on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction. It was signed in New York on June 19 2023, but it has taken years to bring countries truly onboard.
Now, the race is on to get the agreement ratified by enough countries for it to become law, in time for the 3rd UN Ocean Conference in Nice next month.
Congratulating itself on the ratification today, the government has emphasised that the agreement “is essential for the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG 14, which focuses entirely on the conservation and sustainable use of the ocean”.
It is also crucial to fulfil the commitment to protect 30% of the sea by 2030, approved at the UN meeting on biodiversity held in Canada in December 2022 (COP15).
“Portugal, as the driving force behind global governance of the ocean, its protection and sustainable use and, at the same time, as the holder of a large maritime area, with a substantial part adjacent to areas beyond national jurisdiction, has important interests that justify its commitment, with matters concerning the definition of the limits of territorial waters, the exclusive economic zone and Portugal’s rights to contiguous seabeds being excluded from the Agreement,” says the document published today.
The government also states in the preamble to the decree-law that the European Union and its member states “are committed to the rapid ratification of the agreement”.
Once ratified by the requisite number of countries, the agreement will come into force 120 days later.
As the High Seas Alliance admits, “it has taken two decades to get this far. A critical tool to address our planetary emergency is within our grasp”. But there are still 38 countries to persuade to move, as Portugal has done today.
Source material: LUSA/ High Seas Alliance tracker
