BBNJ Meets the Arctic: Global Ocean Governance in a Region of Existing Rules and Rising Tensions
Norway has recently ratified the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement, a new global framework for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction.
The agreement enters into force in 2026 and is often described as a milestone in international ocean governance. In the Arctic, however, BBNJ does not arrive in an institutional vacuum. The region is already governed through a dense web of legal frameworks, sectoral agreements and political arrangements.
The Central Arctic Ocean Fisheries Agreement, existing regional cooperation mechanisms, and long-standing national interests all shape how new global rules may be interpreted and applied in practice. BBNJ introduces new tools with potentially far-reaching implications for the Arctic Ocean, including the possibility of establishing marine protected areas in international waters and new procedures for environmental impact assessment.
How these tools will interact with existing governance structures remains an open and politically sensitive question. Implementation will depend not only on legal design, but on coordination, trust and willingness to cooperate in a region marked by growing geopolitical tension.
The agreement is also closely linked to broader global ambitions, such as the “30 by 30” conservation target under the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Translating such targets into meaningful action in the Arctic raises difficult questions.
Who defines conservation priorities in areas beyond national jurisdiction? How are regional knowledge systems and existing management regimes taken into account? And what happens when key Arctic actors participate in BBNJ, while others remain outside the framework?
As climate change increases accessibility and commercial interest in Arctic waters, these questions become more than theoretical. BBNJ has the potential to reshape how biodiversity, resource use and governance are balanced on the high seas in the north. Whether it will do so in ways that strengthen coherence and legitimacy, or instead add new layers of complexity, remains to be seen. At the Centre for the Ocean and the Arctic, we work at the intersection of international law, geopolitics and regional ocean governance.
Through research and dialogue, we examine how global agreements such as BBNJ are likely to play out in the Arctic context, and what this means for Norway’s role and room for maneuver in a rapidly changing ocean governance landscape.
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