This book has its origins in a Work Program on Area beyond National Jurisdiction (abnj) of the then K.G. Jebsen Centre for the Law of the Sea (currently the Norwegian Centre for the Law of the Sea) of UiT The Artic University of Norway, which was developed in 2016. As the Work Program indicated, the topic of abnj was selected because it provided a cross-cutting theme, which allowed integrating the research of staff at the Jebsen Centre and beyond. The focus of this Work Program, however, was mostly explained by the fact that the regime for abnj was and currently remains, so to speak, the last frontier in developing the governance framework for the ocean, of which the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea laid the basis in 1982. In that sense, it provides a testing ground for determining how the law of the sea is responding to the unprecedented challenges of climate change and a still increasing ecological footprint of humanity.
At the time the Work Program on abnj was developed by Vito De Lucia, the idea of the book project was present in embryonic form. Most other activities of the Work Program focussed on the ongoing consultations on the (future) regime for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction under the aegis of the United Nations General Assembly (bbnj process). In that light, it was decided to use the book project to cast the net wider and also look beyond the bbnj process and try to uncover the deeper currents that have shaped and continue to shape the regime of abnj.
In December of 2019 we convened a workshop at the School of Law of Utrecht University to discuss the initial draft chapters with our contributors. We take this opportunity to thank all of our contributors for the constructive and inspiring input for each other’s chapters and our initial ideas for the concluding chapter during the workshop, as well as their patience in dealing with the numerous requests we made during their further work on their chapters. As the time that has elapsed since the workshop indicates, seeing this project through to fruition was not without challenges. The fact that one of the editors figures twice as an author of one of the substantive chapters was not a conscious choice, but a result of one of our contributors withdrawing at a relatively late stage. As editors, we felt that we could not do without a discussion of the issue of area-based management tools and marine protected areas, which is part and parcel of the bbnj process and offers an interesting perspective on how the regime for abnj developed over the last couple of decades. More in general, the long gestation of this project in part is due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and to a larger extent probably reflects current academic
As should be obvious, this project would not have been possible without our authors. We cannot thank them enough for bearing with us all this time. However, there are also a number of others we would like to thank for their contributions: The KG Jebsen Centre for the Law of the Sea, the Norwegian Centre for the Law of the Sea and the Utrecht Centre for Water, Ocean and Sustainability Law for making the funding for the 2019 Utrecht Workshop and editorial assistance available; Işik Girgiç for her assistance in preparing a report of that workshop, which provided important input for providing further guidance to our authors; Mana Tugend for her diligence and patience in taking care of the final editing and lay out of the manuscript and making it ready for submission to the publisher and Ruda van Ravenstein for preparing the index. Finally, our appreciation goes to Marie Sheldon and Kelley Baylis and other staff at Brill for getting this book ready for submission to its intended audience.
Vito De Lucia, Lan Ngoc Nguyen and Alex Oude Elferink
Tromsø, Utrecht and Amersfoort
30 July 2021