Looking Ahead: Ocean Governance Challenges in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

In her career, Elisabeth Mann Borgese provided an eloquent and enduring analysis of ocean governance. This collection of over eighty essays endeavors to honor, update, and advance her exceptional contributions. The contents of this book also reflect, to a considerable extent, substantial elements of the International Ocean Institute’s long-standing training programs which she initiated. In this final chapter, we offer a synthesis of the essays, highlighting some of the most significant future challenges of ocean governance and, by implication, capacity development. Our approach involves two basic steps. First, we identify major present-day pressures, problems, and concerns that are raised repeatedly in this book and link these concerns to fundamental and persisting ocean governance themes, originally highlighted by Elisabeth Mann Borgese. Chief among these are the progressive development of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (unclos); sustainable development of renewable and non-renewable ocean resources; conservation and protection of the marine environment; maritime security and transportation; enhancement of marine science and technologies; and addressing the interrelated problems of ocean space as a whole and their interactions.1 Finally, we point to key questions, challenges, and opportunities that are likely to confront practitioners of ocean governance and the development of capacity over the coming decades of the twenty-first century. When considered in their entirety, the essays in this book reveal a significant number of overarching and frequently mentioned concerns with ocean governance, the marine environment, and human use and impacts on the ocean. We suggest that they fit broadly into