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A Rights-based Approach to Ocean Conservation in the Sustainable Development Goals
The oceans and seas are a life-sustaining support system on which we all depend—a global commons to be held in trust for the common good. Yet decades of unrestrained and unsustainable human activity has led us to the current crisis of climate change, overexploitation, and contamination. These environmental abuses are directly related to peoples’ ability to enjoy their human rights.
The SDGs are a unique opportunity for us as a global community to assume our shared duty to respect and protect the oceans. Our assessment and recommendations are inspired by our constituencies in coastal communities around the world and guided by local and global research, the international human-rights framework, and our diverse spiritual traditions. We call on Member States to transform the systemic factors behind practices that damage the oceans, disrupting ecosystems, and undermining human rights.
The TST Issue Brief on Oceans and Seas 1 emphasizes the importance of healthy oceans to achieving many sustainable development objectives and alerts to the major indicators of crisis. Unsustainable extraction tops the list of “increasing, complex challenges” 2
that threaten our ability to ensure healthy, resilient, and life-sustaining oceans.
Based on the assessment and experience of our members, we urge Member States to tackle:
Category of threats
Unsustainable extraction
Pollution
Climate change impacts
Unsustainable coastal economic development
Manifestations fossil-fuel extraction deep seabed mining offshore oil and gas drilling overfishing harmful fishing methods plastics chemical, oil, nuclear sewage industrial drainage/run-off noise, sonar, radar, light greenhouse gas emissions acidification rising temperature construction on or near habitats harmful tourism
Consequences with impact on human rights and ecological health loss of biodiversity reduced carbon-absorption contamination of marine food chain toxic seafood food shortage melting ice caps coral bleaching rising seas storms coastal erosion loss of livelihood forced displacement militarization of the seas
“salination” of coastal lands nitrogen dead-cycles at river mouths
The unsustainable extraction of marine non-living resources, e.g. deep sea mining, offshore oil and gas drilling is a serious concern and illustrates the need for a transformative approach if the SDGs are to be effective. Beyond the threats to marine life from the extraction itself, a development agenda that maintains our dependency on fossil fuels to reach economic or energy goals would directly undermine efforts in the same agenda to improve ocean health and resilience.
1 TST Issue Brief on Oceans and Seas, available at: http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/ .
2 Id. at 2-3.

Governance of the global commons for the common good requires “increased coherence, coordination and collective decision-making at the global level, grounded in international human rights standards and guided by the human rights commitments of the international community.”
The interdependence of the health of ocean ecosystems and the full guarantee and enjoyment of human-rights cannot be underestimated. The manifold ocean crises caused by the prevailing model of development have led to violations of the rights to food, to health, to an adequate standard of living, to a cultural life, and even to life itself.
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Human-rights violations can also contribute to the promotion of policies that harm oceans.
Guaranteeing the rights to public participation, freedom of expression and assembly, and self-determination in relation to ocean policy determinations increases the likelihood of adopting policies that are more effective in advancing the objectives of conservation and sustainable development.
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Key elements to draw from international human-rights law: people-centered development, attention to root causes, broad public participation, inclusion, accountability, nondiscrimination, reducing inequalities, empowerment, the rule of law, democracy, good governance, access to justice, access to information, an active role for civil society, social protection floors, and effective international cooperation
OHCHR, Open Letter on Human Rights and
Post-2015 Agenda from Navanethem Pillay, to all Permanent Missions in New York and
Geneva (June 3, 2013)
To make human-rights principles and norms operational for analyzing oceans in the SDGs, we urge the application of the Mining Working Group’s four-part litmus test.
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To any proposed draft set of goals, targets, and indicators, we must apply the following test:
Principle Legal norms
First, do no harm.
Eradicate root causes of poverty
People as rightsholders
Sustainability
Responsibility to respect and protect
Obligation to promote and fulfill
Rights to participation, access to justice
Rights of future generations, intergenerational equity, environmental law
Guiding questions
Are there elements or gaps that will in effect promote policies or practices that undermine human rights or are contrary to the objective of ensuring healthy, resilient, lifesustaining oceans and ecosystems?
Will the type of development policies promoted make actual contributions to eradicating poverty, measured by the increased enjoyment of civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights?
Are people empowered and protected to exercise their rights to participate in policy determinations? Is effective remedy guaranteed if harm occurs?
Adopting a precautionary approach, what are the answers to these questions as applied to the rights of future generations? What is the assessment from the perspective of the rights of nature and planetary boundaries?
3 See, inter alia , Report of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights obligations related to environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and waste, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/21/48 (July 2, 2012), para. 39.
4 See Center for International Forestry Research & International Union for Conservation of Nature, Rights-based Approaches:
Exploring Issues and opportunities for conservation (2009), p. xviii.
5 See Mining Working Group at the UN, Rights-based Litmus Test: Assessing Resource-extraction Policies in the Context of
Sustainable Development (Dec. 4, 2013), available at www.miningwg.wordpress.org.

Whether through a stand-alone goal or a comprehensive series of cross-cutting targets and indicators, the
SDGs must address the root causes of the ecological and human dimensions of the ocean crises. Therefore we must encourage policies aimed to:
Shift the current paradigm away from the extractive development model
Regulate and rapidly decrease all drilling toward zero
Require strict adherence to precautionary principle on deep seabed mining
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Move away from nuclear energy entirely
Increase support for energy from tide, wave, ocean wind, solar, and other sustainable renewable energies
Require trust funds for activities with an elevated risk of damage, to influence incentives and guarantee the right to effective remedy
Apply appropriate practice to stop overfishing
Prioritize communal, subsistence, small-scale and family fishing operations in licenses and catch shares
Reduce sources of pollution and remedy contamination:
Reduce plastic waste through packaging and disposal legislation, including plastic-bag bans
Monitor and reduce and sensory pollution
Establish river to sea watershed initiatives to reduce pollution from agriculture and industry
Eliminate mercury emissions and acid rain from factories and power plants
Accountability for fishing agreements, and spread of exotic specials
Monitor seafood toxicity
Address climate change issues such as mitigation, reparation, system change
Increase marine sanctuaries and refuges
Restore carbon-absorbing natural habitats, including mangrove forests, tidal wetlands, inland forests, and native grassland communities
Reduce global dependence on fossil fuels
Promote ability of coastal communities to pursue own development objectives
Invest in small-scale, sustainable projects targeted at historically discriminated groups
Increase “knowledge dialogue” with respect for traditional or indigenous expertise and practices
Increase commitment to ecosystem sciences and conservation biology
Measure poverty eradication with indicators from the rights-based definition in the Guiding
Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights
Guarantee accountability
Instruct States to report on impact to ocean health and efforts to mitigate climate change in their reporting to UN human rights mechanisms, including the Universal Periodic Review
Adopt a legal binding instrument governing business and human rights
For more information: Mining Working Group, newyork@fiop.org
6 See, e.g., Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide, Elizabeth Mitchell, Legal Opinion on the Application of the Precautionary
Principle to Deep Seabed Mining in the Pacific Region (August 2012).