Analysis And Proposition On International Legal Regime Of Marine Protected Areas In Arctic Marine Region

With the rapid acceleration climate change and increased human activities,the Arctic is facing unprecedented challenges.Marine Protected Areas(MPAs),as an environmental tool,can efficiently protect Arctic marine environment and conserve its biodiversity.However,the establishment and management of Arctic MPAs are in face of various problems and restrictions.Lacking holistic legal framework leads to unclear legal basis,blurring implementation procedure,and defective management system.In fact,many international conventions address the use and legal basis of MPAs,such as United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea,and the Convention on Biological Diversity.OSPAR Convention and Arctic Council also took measures to implement MPAs in Arctic marine region.This thesis is going to assess and analyze international conventions that encourage or require the use of MPAs in Arctic marine region,as well as the practice of MPAs in the specific area.Finally,this thesis will propose the possible legal frameworks of Arctic MPAs.The first section will give MPA a definition and define the scope of Arctic marine region.Then the thesis will provide the description of present natural situation of the Arctic marine region,and expounds the necessity of establishing MPAs in the area.Meanwhile,this section will put forward the core issue of the thesis,which is the lack of legal framework.In the following section,the thesis will analyze the legal basis of establishing MPAs cited from UNCLOS and CBD and further discuss whether their provisions impose legal obligations on States to establish MPAs.After that,the thesis will focus on the practice in the Arctic marine region,carding the OSPAR Convention and the work under Arctic Council.Then summarize their effects and the valuation for further work.Finally,according to above analysis,the thesis will put forward possible legal frameworks for Arctic MPAs,including regional agreement,the UNCLOS implementing agreement,and CBD additional protocol.Besides,the section will emphatically analyze the advantages and maneuverability of the most feasible scheme– the regional agreement.