'You have delivered': UN chief lauds adoption of historic treaty to 'govern the high seas'

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday praised the body's 193 member states for ratifying the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Treaty, which CBS News explains "imposes rules aimed at protecting the environment and heading off disputes over natural resources, shipping and other matters in waters beyond any country's national jurisdiction."

Also known as the High Seas Treaty, the BBNJ was finalized in March and is the "first-ever legally binding international" agreement "governing the high seas," CBS writes. "The U.N.'s adoption of the measure will mark a clear turning point for vast stretches of the planet where conservation efforts have long struggled in a sort of wild west of exploration, overfishing, oil exploration, and deep-sea mining."

Guterres, known for his recurring warnings that inaction on climate change is humanity's gravest existential crisis, lauded the BBNJ's adoption.

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"You have delivered," Guterres said, according to CBS News. "And you have done so at a critical time."

UN Special Envoy for the Oceans Peter Thompson also remarked on the BBNJ's significance, telling CBS that "to prevent a cascading of species extinctions, last year we universally agreed to the Global Biodiversity Framework's target of protecting 30% of the planet's land and sea by 2030. To reach that target, we'll have to establish Marine Protected Areas in the High Seas, and happily the BBNJ Treaty will give us the legal means to do that."

CBS points out the BBNJ's four main tenets:

• MPAs: The treaty establishes a framework for 'Marine Protected Areas' — beyond the ones already within national territorial waters — to counter biodiversity loss and degradation of ecosystems of the ocean caused by the impact of climate change, including warming and acidification of oceans, as well as plastics, pollutants, and overfishing.
• It establishes standards and guidelines to determine the environmental impacts of high seas activities, including their impact on marine life and ecosystems. It requires signatory countries to present an assessment of pollution or other impacts of their proposed activities on the high seas, such as deep-sea mining.
• The treaty creates a Conference of Parties (COP) to monitor and enforce compliance with the treaty's terms, which will include a scientific advisory board.
• It creates a mechanism for the transfer of marine technology to developing countries to ensure equitable sharing of benefits and resources from the high seas, including materials that could prove ground-breaking in medical and nutrition science.

CBS also notes that "there is a final hurdle — or 60, actually — that the new treaty must still clear: It will only go into effect 120 days after it is ratified by at least 60 U.N. member nations individually. In the U.S., that means Senate approval."

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CBS's full report continues at this link.