Source · Select Committees · Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 24
24
Accepted in Part
Set clear timeline for introducing legislation to ratify Global Oceans Treaty by September 2025.
Recommendation
We urge the Government to set a clear timeline for introducing the necessary primary legislation to ratify the Global Oceans / High Seas Treaty to send a clear signal of prioritising global marine protection. The timeline for ratifying this should be published within a month of this report and the treaty should be ratified no later than 20 September 2025, two years after the UK signed it. (Recommendation, Paragraph 88) 53
Government Response Summary
The government partially agrees, stating it is committed to ratifying the BBNJ Agreement and will introduce the necessary legislation by the end of the year. This timeline is later than the committee's requested ratification by 20 September 2025 and it does not explicitly commit to publishing a timeline within a month.
Government Response
Accepted in Part
HM Government
Accepted in Part
As the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy MP, noted in his Kew lecture in September 2024, the Government is completely committed to ratifying the BBNJ Agreement.4 Furthermore, as announced by Defra’s Minister for Water and Flooding, Emma Hardy MP, in her speech at the Third United Nations Ocean Conference in June 2025 – the Government has committed to introduce the legislation by the end of the year, which is needed in order to implement the BBNJ Agreement ahead of ratification. The Government therefore partially agrees with this recommendation.