University of Tasmania, Australia

Description

Australia is party to a number of instruments that address the management of southern ocean maritime space and marine resources. This assessment will be undertaken by establishing criteria to assessing the effectiveness of existing management regimes, criteria developed from an analysis of the definition of effectiveness. This framework will be applied to relevant instruments including the Antarctic Treaty, the Madrid Protocol, CCAMLR, ICRW and LOSC that govern marine areas and resource use, management and conservation in the Southern Ocean.

The last decade has seen increasing attention to institutional arrangements and policy outcomes affecting the management of the worlds seas and oceans. Attention to ocean governance has occurred at national, regional and international levels, initially driven by problems with marine pollution, inadequate controls over unregulated fishing, and degradation of the marine environment, but more recently identifying gaps and overlaps in governance regimes. Australia has taken a high profile lead in these areas, supporting initiatives that address marine protected areas in the high seas, and taking significant action against illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) fishing in the 1990s (Haward 2003; Haward 2004) and taking a high profile against moves to re-introduce commercial whaling. Australia has also addressed the role of oceans in global climate change through significant contributions to the IPCC process. Australias international actions have been matched by the development of national oceans governance initiatives including a national Oceans Policy framework (Bergin & Haward 1999; Vince 2003; Vince 2004) that provides a domestic legal and policy framework.

The project aims to review the concept of effectiveness drawing on recent literature on global and regional regimes. This analysis will address the definition of effectiveness and identify criteria to be used in the assessment of existing management regimes. These criteria utilise insights from Arild Underdal that effectiveness is related to components such as the stringency and inclusiveness of management provisions, level of compliance and the impact of side effects produced by the instrument.

The second component of the project includes developing an inventory of relevant regimes and instruments affecting the Southern Ocean. These include, inter alia, the Antarctic Treaty, the Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty on Environmental Protection (Madrid Protocol), the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species Wild Flora and Flora (CITES), the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW), the Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) and the Law of the Sea Convention, (LOSC). This inventory will draw on extant studies and use on line-data bases.

Contact:Marcus Haward

Contact: M.G.Haward@utas.edu.au">M.G.Haward@utas.edu.au