Compare and contrast. On Tuesday, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) told a press briefing that the U.S. and U.K. deal to help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines was “for the sake of their own geopolitical interests,” and warned that the world is “walking further and further down the path of error and danger.” On the other hand, on March 4, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was one of many to describe the historic agreement over the U.N.’s “High Seas Treaty” as a “victory for multilateralism,” with China and the U.S. both part of the successful negotiations.
The apparent island of cooperation over the “High Seas Treaty” begs the question: How can major powers work together in one key forum while being engaged in dangerous competition elsewhere?
On one level, the answer might feel obvious, because there is an essentially universal interest in play with the new U.N. treaty. It’s a first step in setting out rules and plans for the conservation and sustainable use of the high seas — the areas of ocean that are not a part of any one country’s sovereign territory or Exclusive Economic Zone — and this is not something the world can do without. “Without controls this massive area is a common property which inevitably leads to over-exploitation, over-capitalization as demand for seafood grows and because marine resources have natural limits,” Yvonne Sadovy, a retired professor of marine biology and ecology at the The University of Hong Kong explains in response to emailed questions.
However, while essentially universal interest may be a necessary factor in securing progress on a deal like this, it’s not sufficient. After former speaker of the U.S House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last year, for instance, China explicitly pulled back from cooperation with the U.S. on climate change for several months. Thus, we know ecological and climatic disaster is not always enough to guarantee cooperation when relations are strained.
So why did this one get through?
Firstly, there are several specifics that may have eased its passage. It focuses on areas outside of states’ control, which creates a degree of negotiation room not present elsewhere. It puts limits on an industry — marine genetic resource research and extraction — that is not as firmly established as, for instance, the oil industry. And it contains key exemptions, such as for pre-existing fishing activities and the operations of military vessels, while not offering major punishments for breaches.
But these don’t mean the treaty is simply an easy win. It refers to and confirms a “huge principle” of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea in the form of “the common heritage of humankind” which “talks about how global commons, such as the high seas, but [also] beyond the high seas, should be shared or managed for the benefit of all,” Jeremy Raguain, a member of negotiating team for the Seychelles tells me via video call (speaking here in a personal capacity). This — among many other issues — was a tough fight, against a backdrop of non-peaceful times, and there are lessons that can be drawn from how agreement was reached in those circumstances.
“The sanctity of [the] closed space” that is the negotiating room is one key soft factor, according to Raguain. Within this environment, the passion, creativity, determination and technical expertise of delegates helped organize coalitions and create voting “tipping points” that are not necessarily foreseeable if we’re only using simplistic calculations of material self-interest. As a part of this, Raguain said skillful brinkmanship from developing countries over the final days of negotiations is a major reason why this treaty’s contents are now being celebrated as a success by ocean experts.
On the same spectrum of less tangible factors is also the outstanding skill of the facilitators, and in particular the Intergovernmental Conference President, Rena Lee, Singapore’s Ambassador for Oceans and Law of the Sea Issues. “This was a Herculean feat” from Lee and her team, said Raguain, who describes one powerful example of how important this role can be in settling issues between major powers, occurring on the final day of negotiations.
“The Chinese delegation basically provided a very strong statement, a very — in their view — precise example of a problem that had been pushed away by previous facilitators … So it’s Saturday in the morning turning into the afternoon … And [Lee] says ‘right, despite all the tension this has caused, let’s do this now.’ And so China, the U.S., everybody ‘big’ big leaves the room and sits — and you’ll see there’s pictures of this, where Rena Lee’s sitting down and you can see surrounded by people — and if I ever saw geopolitics put into human form [this is it.] I purposefully as little Seychelles stayed away from the whales swimming around each other in that cafe area because there’s nothing for me there, that’s gonna be figured out, so I wasn’t privy to the conversations, but I could see [Lee] put herself in the middle of this storm and really bring people to the talk. And there must’ve been a lot given and taken and said, but they came back … they came back two, three hours later, [and] there was a way forward.”
What this isn’t to say is that all differences and outside events can simply be talked away.
On the one hand Raguain said that it can be the case that “We’re locked in these basements for 35 hours, and there could’ve been a nuclear armageddon somewhere and we wouldn’t know it.” But on the other hand he adds that “Anything within two months of the treaties happening is in the hallways, it’s being talked about or seen,” and diplomatic actors are acting “holistically,” carrying their economic and security interests and soft power interests they might have with them. This means issues like Taiwan and territorial disputes in the South China Sea may be awkward “elephants in the room,” while Russia’s war in Ukraine has more overt cooling effects on relations in the room.
However, outside geopolitical issues didn’t necessarily only make agreement more difficult. Geopolitical competition might conversely have greased the wheels of negotiations in some ways.
“I think China wants to see ‘How do I maintain my friends as I grow?’” Raguain explains, referring primarily to China’s support for the positions of the G77 group of developing countries in these negotiations. Meanwhile, for the U.S., appealing to developing countries and wanting to ensure it is seen as a world leader are both in play. “It’s not just America appealing to the developing world,” Raguain said, “it’s also about America appealing to its allies — how much scrutiny the allies have on the U.S. is not to be underestimated.” At previous environmental negotiations the U.S. has been left behind as a holdout on key details — for various strategic reasons elsewhere this may not now be a position it wants to take up.
In a context like this, where the same factors can simultaneously push against and encourage progress on a deal, it’s difficult to make sweeping conclusions about what is replicable in the future and what isn’t. But a couple of key ideas nevertheless stand out as crucial. The act of talking — in a sustained way, in person, facilitated by leaders experienced in negotiation. And the use of technically qualified experts to cut through some larger strategy (“The marine scientist who’s gone and collected samples, they can say ‘no this is completely unworkable, this is completely not what happens,’ or they can say ‘this is actually possible, in fact we’ve got examples of this,’” Raguain said.)
The emotional scenes when the treaty text was agreed, however, do tell you that it was no easy task. That’s part of why it’s such a major achievement. There was applause. There were tears of relief and elation. Those involved in these negotiations knew how hard agreement on the international stage is to come by.
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