A photo of Tampa Bay. Photo courtesy of Federico Franco.
The treaty, which entered into force earlier this year, seeks to establish a legal framework to protect wildlife and share resources in areas not included within any nation’s marine boundaries.
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By Federico Franco
TAMPA, Fla. — Jan. 17, 2026, marks an important date for the protection of marine ecosystems and biodiversity. Last month, an 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 (BBNJ Agreement), commonly known as the “High Seas Treaty,” went into force after years of deliberation. Originally adopted by the UN General Assembly on June 19, 2023, it is now the third implementing agreement to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The agreement is a landmark global accord that seeks to protect marine life in the high seas and the deep seabed, which until now have been areas beyond any country’s national jurisdiction. These open ocean areas are defined as international waters, and they begin beyond the established Maritime Limits of each nation. These limits are divided into three areas: territorial seas, which extend up to 12 nautical miles from the coastline, the contiguous zone, which covers up to 24 nautical miles from the coastline, and an exclusive economic zon,e which goes up to 200 nautical miles from the coastline. These measurements were defined by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and they established that areas beyond these 200 nautical miles are considered the aforementioned international waters, and as such, they remained unaffected by any country’s marine or ecological protection laws. However, with the BBNJ agreement now set into force, this begins to change as a new precedent is established, which seeks to create a network to protect marine life and resources in these international waters.
Blacktip Reef Shark off the Florida Keys, Photo courtesy of Federico Franco.
This treaty applies to over two-thirds of the world’s oceans, including the seabed and water column, and it seeks to provide a legal framework for the conservation of marine organisms, promoting sustainable use of marine resources, and creating a network between nations so that benefits and discoveries found from marine life can be shared by humanity as a whole. To achieve these goals, the BBNJ agreement focuses on four main issues, which were listed by the United Nations as such:
- Marine genetic resources and benefit-sharing, ensuring discoveries from marine organisms benefit all humanity.
- Area-based management tools, enabling the creation of marine protected areas (MPAs) in international waters.
- Environmental impact assessments require countries to evaluate how proposed activities could affect fragile marine ecosystems.
- Capacity-building and technology transfers, helping developing countries participate fully in ocean research and conservation.
As part of the preparations to set the agreement into force, a temporary commission was created in 2025 to ensure the fair implementation of the High Seas Treaty. The commission met in April and August of that same year, and is scheduled to meet again between March and April 2026 to continue discussions on governance, financing, and monitoring mechanisms for the nations that have signed and ratified the BBNJ agreement. As of Feb. 2026, the UN website shows 124 countries (including the U.S) have signed, and 85 have ratified the High Seas Treaty.