High Seas Treaty Will Transform Our Fragile Ocean for the Better

Game-changing international ocean treaty comes into force. Credit: NOAA
 
Deep-sea corals were among the treasures found during an expedition in the North Marianas Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Source: UN News

By Pietro Bertazzi and Oliver Tanqueray
AMSTERDAN / LONDON, Feb 3 2026 (IPS)

“The ocean’s health is humanity’s health”, said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in September 2025.

He was commenting after the High Seas Treaty (BBNJ) [1] finally achieved ratification, going on to call for “a swift, full implementation” from all partners. As of January 17, 2026, the treaty has come into force, meaning the time for implementation is now. What is the High Seas Treaty?

Only 1% of the high seas are currently protected. The new treaty will greatly increase safeguards, with significant implications for activities covering nearly 50% of the Earth’s surface.

The High Seas Treaty establishes, for the first time, a legal mechanism to govern activities affecting biodiversity in the areas of the ocean that lie outside the jurisdiction of any single country (ie their Exclusive Economic Zones, typically 200 miles from their coastline).

The agreement was achieved after nearly 20 years of dialogue, much of which was carried by Small Island Developing States (SIDS), Indigenous peoples and coastal communities. For them, the relationship with the ocean is most direct and the threats to it are most existential.

The entry into force of such a significant legal instrument sends a powerful message on the value of collaboration, and its importance in confronting the environmental risks facing the economy and humanity.

The agreement will change the ways that activities taking place in the High Seas – and those affecting them – will be planned, monitored, managed and reported on. This level of transparency will drive a cycle of accountability and improvement in the relationship between our economy and the natural world on which it depends.

What you need to know

The treaty’s role as an international legal mechanism will have significant effects on companies and financial institutions to respond to.

Key outcomes

1. Increased transparency on ocean-based activities

The agreement sets out monitoring and transparency requirements of countries – including Environment Impact Assessments (EIA) – alongside high seas genetic material, samples and digital sequence data, as well as a publicly accessible database to promote publicly available real economy data and data exchange.

This means that many aspects of companies’ high seas-related projects will be accessible to stakeholders.

Anticipating increased public information on environmental studies and mitigation plans, companies should prepare to report on high seas activities, such as fishing, shipping, energy infrastructure, mining and bioprospecting, as well as potential impacts of new activities such as carbon dioxide removal technologies.

Companies can also further identify opportunities through new publicly available data and recognize the halo benefits that increased coverage of marine-protected areas brings.

2. Increased expectations on corporate disclosure

New EIAs will amplify the need for standardized corporate data on marine impact – coupled with growing investor and policy focus on companies’ high seas activities, strategies and governance.

Financial institutions (FIs) and regulators will expect companies to report on how they comply with treaty obligations such as the number of high seas environmental assessments completed, presence in protected areas, and contributions to capacity building.

Asset owners will ask for metrics on exposure to high seas biodiversity risks. Governments may require reporting from firms to compile national reports and monitor compliance.

Companies should expect new jurisdictional regulations on ocean activities, as Member States take steps to implement the Agreement, via enhanced environmental rules and disclosure obligations.

For FIs, there is increased focus on integrating ocean health into Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) analysis, with risks and opportunities in blue finance and sustainable ocean industries only going to grow.

This creates a need to ensure that portfolio companies are equipped to comply with new regulations and secure relevant permissions to operate in international waters. Failure to do so creates risks to ongoing operations as well as litigation and reputational exposure.

3. Strengthened multilateral collaboration

The agreement creates legal mechanisms for area-based management tools, including Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). For disclosers and financial institutions, this means enhancing readiness to adapt to exclusions or operating conditions on shipping lanes, fishing grounds, mining sites, and cable routes. Industries will need to track MPA designations and adjust operations (for example by rerouting vessels or ceasing extraction) to remain compliant.

CDP stands ready to support the ocean

Working with companies and data users, CDP will integrate and standardize key metrics needed to implement the High Seas Treaty. This ensures that stakeholders have the reliable, comparable data needed to implement collective goals, and companies can demonstrate their leadership on ocean stewardship.

From 2026 onwards, CDP will be expanding its questionnaire to gather ocean-related data. In the first year of disclosure, we will generate insights on processes for identifying, assessing, and managing ocean-related dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities.

This work is being done in collaboration with our Capital Markets Signatories – many of which have already shown demand for ocean-related data – and disclosing companies, focusing on those with the most significant ocean impacts and dependencies.

High Seas, higher ambitions

There is still much to do to improve the protection of marine areas and restoration of ocean health. But the BBNJ is a significant step forward in this effort.

In a year where nature is placed on the main stage of the international agenda, companies, FIs and governments alike have an opportunity to embed ocean health into global financial systems.

Countries must also complement the agreement with a drive to protect coastal waters not part of their direct control. Many ocean-impacting activities will not be constrained by the BBNJ. Only 4.2% of fishery production, for example, takes place on the high seas[2]. This means there will be a continued role for Member States to conserve and sustainably use the biological diversity in areas within their jurisdiction.

We must build momentum behind the opportunities enabled by this historic deal – collaboration and transparency will play a vital part in turning this momentum into action.

Footnotes

1. The treaty is formally called the ‘Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction’, or ‘BBNJ’.
2. By volume, the total catch from the high seas accounts for 4.2% of annual marine capture fisheries production. Schiller L, Bailey M, Jacquet J, Sala E. ‘High seas fisheries play a negligible role in addressing global food security.’

Pietro Bertazzi is Chief Policy and interim Growth Officer, CDP, and Oliver Tanqueray is Head of Ocean, CDP.

Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) is a global non-profit that runs the world’s only independent environmental disclosure system for companies, capital markets, cities, states and regions to manage their environmental impacts.

IPS UN Bureau