The oceans as a global commons, the threats to them, and the laws, institutions and agreements that govern their use.

What this dot point is asking

WJEC wants you to explain why the oceans are a global commons, the threats they face, and how international laws, institutions and agreements attempt to govern them, with an assessment of effectiveness.

The answer

The oceans as a global commons

Because no state owns the high seas, individual users have an incentive to overexploit them, the classic tragedy of the commons described by Garrett Hardin. Oceans cover over $70$ per cent of the planet, provide food for billions, carry around $90$ per cent of world trade by volume, hold energy and minerals, and regulate the climate by absorbing heat and carbon dioxide, so their mismanagement has global consequences.

Threats to the oceans

Overfishing has collapsed stocks (the Atlantic cod fishery off Newfoundland crashed in 1992 and has never fully recovered) and harmed coastal economies; plastic pollution accumulates in ocean gyres such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, with millions of tonnes entering the sea each year; warming and acidification bleach coral reefs and stress fisheries; and rising demand for deep-sea minerals and ice-free Arctic shipping routes raises new geopolitical tensions.

Governing the oceans

Ocean governance is layered and multi-scalar. UNCLOS (the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982) sets the framework, defining territorial waters (up to $12$ nautical miles), exclusive economic zones (up to $200$ nautical miles, where the coastal state controls resources) and leaving the high seas beyond as international. Regional fisheries management organisations set catch quotas, the International Maritime Organization regulates shipping and pollution (the MARPOL convention), marine protected areas conserve habitats, and the High Seas (BBNJ) treaty, agreed in 2023, for the first time allows protected areas beyond national jurisdiction.

Assessing effectiveness

Governance has set important rules and some marine protected areas and quotas have helped stocks recover, but enforcement on the high seas is weak, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing persists, plastic and emissions are hard to control, and sovereignty limits cooperation because states guard their own interests. Effectiveness is therefore partial and uneven, generally stronger within national EEZs than on the open ocean.

Examples in context

Example 1. The collapse of the Newfoundland cod fishery. The Grand Banks cod fishery off eastern Canada, once one of the richest in the world, collapsed in 1992 after decades of industrial overfishing, forcing a moratorium that put around $30{,}000$ people out of work and devastated coastal communities. Despite decades of closure the stock has only partly recovered. The case is the classic example of the tragedy of the commons in action and of governance failing to set sustainable limits in time, showing why quotas and marine protected areas matter.

Example 2. UNCLOS and the 2023 High Seas treaty. UNCLOS provides the legal backbone of ocean governance, dividing the sea into territorial waters, exclusive economic zones and the high seas, but it left almost no mechanism to create protected areas beyond national jurisdiction. The 2023 High Seas (BBNJ) treaty fills this gap, enabling marine protected areas on the high seas and supporting the global "$30$ by $30$" target to protect $30$ per cent of the oceans by 2030. It illustrates governance evolving to match new threats, while its real effectiveness will depend on how many states ratify and enforce it.

Try this

Q1. Define the term global commons. [2 marks]

• Cue. A resource or area, such as the high seas, beyond the jurisdiction of any single state and shared in principle by all humanity.

Q2. Explain one reason why governing the high seas is difficult. [3 marks]

• Cue. No state has sovereignty over the high seas, so enforcement is weak and individual users have an incentive to overexploit shared resources (the tragedy of the commons).