GIWA - Global International Waters Assessment

Major intergovernmental agreements and actors

Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic, OSPAR
The OSPAR Convention of 1992 replaces the 1972 Oslo Convention and the 1974 Paris Convention, but Decisions, Recommendations and all other agreements adopted under those Conventions will continue to be applicable, unaltered in their legal nature, unless they are terminated by new measures adopted under the new Convention. Executive body of the new 1992 OSPAR Convention is the OSPAR Commission. See OSPAR information on Ministerial meetings, Contracting Parties, Rules of Procedure, Strategies & Action Plan (see below), Meetings and Documents, Publications, the Quality Status Report (see below), etc. At the 1998 Ministerial Meeting of the OSPAR Commission the Ministers adopted the Sintra Statement setting out the political impetus for future action by the OSPAR Commission with a view to ensuring the protection of the marine environment of the North-East Atlantic.

North-East Atlantic Fisheries Convention
The Convention was adopted in 1959 and entered into force in 1963. The objective of the Convention is to ensure the conservation of the fish stocks and the rational exploitation of the fisheries of the North-East Atlantic Ocean and adjacent waters. The origins of the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) lie in the former Permanent Commission, founded in 1953 and formed under the 1946 Convention for the Regulation of Meshes of Fishing Nets and the Size Limits of Fish. In the early 1960s it was considered that the Commission needed a wider range of powers to regulate for the effects of the technological advances in fishing methods. In 1963 the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) was formed under the North East Atlantic Fisheries Convention to succeed the Permanent Commission. In addition to the powers of the Permanent Commission, NEAFC could also establish closed fishing areas and seasons, and regulate catch and fishing effort.

Convention for the Conservation of Salmon in the North Atlantic Ocean
The objective of the Convention, adopted in 1982 and in force in 1983, is to prohibit fishing of salmon beyond areas of fisheries jurisdiction of coastal state, and also to prohibit fishing of salmon beyond 12 nautical miles from the baseline from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured except within the area of fisheries jurisdiction of the Faroe Islands and in the West Greenland area. See also NASCO Council Resolutions. The Convention establishes the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization, NASCO. The objective of NASCO is to contribute through consultation and cooperation to the conservation, restoration, enhancement and rational management of salmon stocks subject to the Convention taking into account the best scientific evidence available to it. Regional commissions of NASCO are the North American Commission, the North-East Atlantic Commission, and the West Greenland Commission.

International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, ICES
ICES is the oldest intergovernmental organisation in the world concerned with marine and fisheries science. Since its establishment in Copenhagen in 1902, ICES has been a leading scientific forum for the exchange of information and ideas on the sea and its living resources, and for the promotion and coordination of marine research by scientists within its member countries. Since the 1970s, a major area of ICES work as an intergovernmental marine science organization is to provide information and advice to Member Country governments and international regulatory commissions (including OSPAR and the European Commission) for the protection of the marine environment and for fisheries conservation.

UN Economic Commission for Europe, ECE
The Environment and Human Settlements Division is part of the secretariat of the UN ECE. It brings together economists, scientists, urban planners and other experts, and organizes the regular intergovernmental meetings of the Committee on Environmental Policy, the Executive Body for the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution, the Meeting of the Parties to the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes and the Committee on Human Settlements. At these meetings, government representatives from Europe, North America, Central Asia and Israel address environmental and human settlements issues, such as environmental impact assessment, air and water pollution, urban renewal or land registration.