Historic un treaty takes effect to protect life in international waters beyond national borders

After two decades of negotiations, a groundbreaking United Nations treaty officially took effect on January 17, 2026, establishing the world’s first comprehensive framework to protect marine life in the vast expanses of ocean beyond any country’s control. The Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) accord represents a monumental shift in how humanity approaches conservation of the high seas—areas that cover roughly 60% of the ocean and more than 40% of Earth’s surface.

For generations, these remote waters operated under a patchwork of outdated customs and fragmented regulations, guided by the outdated belief that the open ocean was too immense to manage and too resilient to be damaged by human activity. This assumption has proven dangerously false as fishing fleets, shipping traffic, mineral exploration, and bioprospecting have rapidly expanded into these areas faster than protective measures could keep pace. Currently, less than 1.5% of international waters receive any formal protection.

The treaty gained the required support when Morocco became the 60th nation to ratify it last September, with more than 80 countries now committed to the agreement. Notably, while the United States helped draft the treaty’s language, it has not yet ratified the accord. The BBNJ treaty addresses four key areas of ocean governance and aims to protect deep-sea trenches, underwater mountain ranges, mid-water ecosystems, and the largely invisible marine communities that play crucial roles in regulating global nutrient cycles and storing massive amounts of carbon.