...
The current Law of the Sea and other maritime legislation governing the international community is simply not effective enough: if it were effective, then the Mission 2011 class would have researched an alternate topic. The current version of the Law of the Sea has been in effect since the early 1980s, but global fish consumption has not decreased, and the ecological degradation to the oceans has only worsened. New action is necessary to save the globe's largest natural resource. The United Nations Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks (in force as from 11 December 2001), which was passed at the United Nations Conference held from 1993-1995, calls for the conservation of fish stocks, one of our primary goals, through vague and insubstantial suggestions: Part II, Article V (an overview of the General Principles of the Agreement), calls for measures to "ensure long-term sustainability of... fish stocks," including protecting biodiversity, assessing the impacts of human activities and environmental factors, preventing overfishing, minimizing pollution and waste deposited in the oceans, adopting "conservation and management measures for species belonging to the same ecosystem or associated with or dependent upon the target stocks," collecting and sharing data on fish stocks in a "timely manner," promoting and conducting research to develop "appropriate" fishery technologies, and implementing and enforcing monitoring and surveillance measures to ensure compliance. This article and others like it in the Agreement and in LOS aim for the same general principles as Mission, but fail to require solid and definitive action.
The Pew Oceans Commission, in a report to the Nation in 2003, suggest a National Ocean Policy Act that, "addresses geographic and institutional fragmentation by providing a unifying set of principles and standards for governance... to make healthy marine ecosystems the priority" (CITE). ADDING MORE ABOUT THIS BEFORE MIDNIGHT
Tommy T.B. Koh, President of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, said that the Law of the Sea was a "monumental achievement, second only to the Charter of the United Nations" (Koh). Our proposal is equally progressive in an age that may doubt the ability of the international community to take action---but it is possible, and even more importantly, it is necessary.
...