International marine environmental governance: A review

Abstract

Impressive numbers of global and regional governmental and non-governmental organizations are working in the field of the marine environment and its resources. Many of these organizations operate within international legal frameworks ranging from comprehensive global conventions, such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to regional agreements aiming at protection and development of regional seas. Characteristic for the management of these seas, both at the national and international level, is that sectoral approaches predominate. Over time, several initiatives have been taken to improve cooperation, coordination and integration to achieve greater coherence of policies and strategies between different organizations dealing with marine and maritime management, within and outside the United Nation system. However, the success has been limited. The weaknesses of international organizations depend fundamentally on problems at the national level. The international organizations are no stronger than their Contracting Parties allow them to be.

Establishing marine protected areas in Sweden: Internal resistance versus global influence

“…The Regional Seas Conventions can designate MPAs in the high seas. An example is the arrangement between the North East Atlantic Fishery Commission (NEAFC) and OSPAR regarding the collective management of high seas protected areas in the North East Atlantic (Grip 2017 ). However, these areas are not legally protected.…”

Unravelling Persistent Problems to Transformative Marine Governance

“…However, 'integration' is often proposed with a lack of critical reflection of what exactly is being 'integrated, ' and what is being left unchallenged (Portman, 2011). The term 'integration' is used widely, but loosely, in ocean management, and the complex societal and political aspects of its implementation are often overlooked (Grip, 2016). For instance, 'integration' and its related terms 1 have positive connotations of completeness and impartiality (Scrase and Sheate, 2002), yet is mostly understood in relation to its opposite (i.e., by being non-fragmented) and, as such, poorly specified when applied to coastal and marine management.…”

“…'Integration' is used as the normative objective for a number of processes, which are often bundled together with poor appreciation of the complex socio-political and institutional context in which they take place. There are, for example, calls for 'sectoral integration, ' which would facilitate the knitting together of polices covering different resources (e.g., fishing and minerals); 'territorial integration, ' which aims to harmonise management of different administrative areas or across the land-sea boundary (Smith et al, 2011;Van Tatenhove, 2011); and organisational integration which is expected to address the complex coastal and marine administrative and organisational structures that evolved with marine governance regimes Elliott, 2014, 2015;Grip, 2016). Effectively undertaking these integrative processes, however, requires complex socio-political and institutional re-ordering, including: the reconstitution of policy sectors and organisations; reformatting and reorganising environmental and socio-economic data; broadening the range of stakeholders engaging with management processes; undoing established methodologies and decision-making processes; and in some cases challenging entrenched cultural behaviours and the framing of 'conventional wisdom.…”

A governança internacional de sistemas sócio-ecológicos (SSE) marinhos: um estudo de caso da América do Sul

“…Conta com contribuições das mais diversas áreas do conhecimento e é trabalhada a partir de diferentes óticas, como as biológicas (ver, por exemplo, Allison, 2001;Grip, 2017), jurídicas (BIGAGLI, 2015;2016) e/ou sócio-políticas (ORACH e SCHLÜTER, 2016), com poucas contribuições de autores das relações internacionais (por exemplo, Vylegzhanin et al, 2017;Morris, 2018;Peterson et al, 2019).…”