China’s formal proposal to host the Secretariat of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement, putting forward Xiamen as its prospective location, has drawn both anticipation and apprehension. Submitted on 16 January 2026, just one day before the Agreement’s entry into force, the move was widely interpreted as a deliberate act of diplomatic signalling. As noted by senior analysts at the Asia Society Policy Institute, the proposal constitutes a “notable signal”[1] of Beijing’s intent to shape emerging global ocean-governance rules.
The timing is both symbolically and strategically significant. Only a week earlier, on 07 January 2026, the White House issued a Presidential Memorandum directing the United States to withdraw from 66 international organisations that it determined “no longer serve American interests,” including 35 non-UN organisations and 31 UN entities.[2] This development has reinforced perceptions of a leadership vacuum in global environmental governance, positioning China itself as a potential source of institutional continuity amid broader systemic uncertainty.
The bid will be considered at the first Conference of the Parties (COP-1), expected in late 2026, alongside competing proposals from Belgium and Chile. Belgium, a long-time convener of “Blue Leaders” initiatives, and Chile, among the earliest ratifiers of the Agreement, both possess strong reputations for transparency-oriented ocean diplomacy. China’s entry, however, transforms what might otherwise have been an administrative decision into a strategic contest over the institutional trajectory of a treaty that took nearly two decades to negotiate.
This article asks whether, and through what institutional mechanisms, the choice of Secretariat host under the BBNJ Agreement may shape early norm-setting and governance trajectories, with particular attention to China’s bid to host the Secretariat in Xiamen. This paper is grounded in historical institutional approaches to global governance, which conceptualise international secretariats not as neutral administrative bodies but as sites of bureaucratic and epistemic power. It argues that early procedural practices generate durable governance effects through path-dependent institutional dynamics. It accordingly develops the concept of procedural drift to capture how formally technical and scientific routines gradually acquire normative and regulatory significance.
China’s bid can thus be understood as an effort to position itself as a key norm-shaper and a responsible global leader in ocean governance at a time of growing competition over ocean resources, marine genetic materials, and deep-sea science, particularly as the United States has stepped back from several multilateral governance frameworks. In this context, hosting the Secretariat of the BBNJ Agreement would provide China with early, informal influence over agenda-setting, technical guidance, and capacity-building priorities, supporting its broader ambition to shape governance of the global commons while projecting an image of responsible environmental stewardship.
The BBNJ Agreement: Origins and Strategic Stakes
Adopted by consensus on 19 June 2023, the BBNJ Agreement is the third implementing agreement under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It aims to conserve and sustainably use marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), which account for two-thirds of the ocean yet remain only marginally protected. The Agreement rests on four interdependent pillars:
- Marine Genetic Resources (MGRs) and benefit-sharing
- Area-Based Management Tools (ABMTs), including marine protected areas
- Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs)
- Capacity-building and Transfer of Marine Technology
Each pillar depends fundamentally on scientific expertise, data transparency, and equitable access to knowledge. In this context, a host Secretariat is not a passive administrator but a central institutional node in shaping procedural norms, defining technical guidance, convening expert communities, and operationalising concepts such as “best available science.” Early administrative practices often become path-dependent, crystallising into interpretive precedent. Consequently, the location and leadership of the Secretariat are not peripheral details but foundational determinants of the BBNJ regime’s institutional identity.
Why the Secretariat Decision Matters: Article 50 and Interpretive Space
Article 50 of the BBNJ Agreement formally defines the Secretariat as an administrative, logistical, and facilitative body operating under the authority of the Conference of the Parties (COP).[3] At first glance, this design appears to preserve firm State control and to limit the Secretariat’s influence. A closer reading, however, reveals substantial interpretive and procedural space through which institutional power may be exercised in practice.
While Article 50(1) assigns the COP responsibility for determining the Secretariat’s functioning and seat, it is silent on how day-to-day operational discretion is to be exercised. Once established, the Secretariat becomes the only permanent institutional actor responsible for translating COP decisions into routine practice, creating a structural asymmetry between episodic political oversight and continuous administrative authority. This asymmetry is a well-documented source of institutional influence in multilateral governance.[4]
Article 50(4)(a) and (b) authorise the Secretariat to provide administrative and logistical support and to “arrange and service” meetings of the COP and its subsidiary bodies. In practice, these functions extend beyond neutral servicing. Control over agenda preparation, sequencing of discussions, background documentation, and procedural framing shapes which issues are prioritised, how options are presented, and which technical pathways are treated as viable.[5]
Article 50(4)(c) further entrusts the Secretariat with circulating information related to implementation, including the dissemination of COP decisions to Parties and to relevant global, regional, and sectoral bodies. The provision does not specify criteria for relevance, standards of accessibility, or modalities of disclosure. This silence creates discretion over transparency, data openness, and epistemic inclusion—an especially consequential issue for a treaty whose legitimacy depends on open science and equitable access to knowledge and data.
Similarly, Article 50(4)(d) empowers the Secretariat to facilitate cooperation and coordination with other international bodies and to enter into administrative and contractual arrangements, subject to COP approval. While this approval requirement constitutes a formal safeguard, in practice the Secretariat acts as the initiator and broker of such relationships, shaping the treaty’s external institutional and epistemic networks before political oversight is meaningfully exercised.
Reporting obligations under Article 50(4)(e) further expand interpretive space. Preparing reports on the execution of Secretariat functions is not a neutral exercise: choices regarding indicators, benchmarks, narrative framing, and evidentiary emphasis influence how implementation performance is assessed and how future COP decisions are shaped. As Barnett and Finnemore observe, such bureaucratic practices are themselves a form of power—where technical procedures become instruments for constructing and legitimising particular global rules.[6] Article 50(4)(f), which authorises the Secretariat to assist with implementation and to perform “such other functions as may be” assigned, introduces deliberate flexibility but also reinforces the Secretariat’s role as a translator of legal obligation into operational practice during the treaty’s formative phase.
Taken in aggregate, Article 50 constructs the Secretariat as formally subordinate yet operationally central, endowed with continuous discretion in precisely those domains—agenda-setting, information management, coordination, and technical interpretation—through which secretariats in other multilateral environmental agreements have historically accumulated institutional influence. This creates what may be described as procedural drift: a process whereby formally neutral administrative practices gradually generate path-dependent governance effects that shape the substance of regulatory regimes over time.
Comparative experience underscores the significance of secretariat location and institutional environment. In Bonn, the UNFCCC Secretariat institutionalised transparency through extensive documentation, observer participation, and structured engagement with scientific and civil society actors,[7] dynamics reinforced by host-country legal norms, EU administrative culture, and strong NGO access. By contrast, the International Seabed Authority evolved a more State-centric and technocratic governance model characterised by closed technical deliberations and restricted access to environmental and contractor data.[8] These trajectories emerged not from explicit treaty mandates, but from how institutional discretion was exercised over time. As international legal scholars have demonstrated, treaty secretariats are legally and institutionally consequential actors whose status, host arrangements, and delegated functions profoundly shape how arrangements are implemented and interpreted.[9]
China’s Strategic Institutionalism in Ocean Governance
China’s ocean governance strategy exemplifies a form of strategic institutionalism—a deliberate effort to gain influence not by contesting international regimes, but by embedding itself within their institutional architectures to steer the evolution of rules, procedures, and interpretive norms. Since Xi Jinping’s 2019 articulation of a “Maritime Community with a Shared Future,”[10] Beijing has redefined the oceans as both arenas of cooperation and vectors of geopolitical agency, integrating ocean diplomacy into its broader project of national rejuvenation, technological self-sufficiency, and regime legitimacy.
This approach operates across three mutually reinforcing dimensions.
First, the functional dimension focuses on consolidating China’s leadership in marine science, technology, and data infrastructure—domains that increasingly underpin global authority in ocean governance. Through massive investment in deep-sea exploration, biodiversity mapping, and marine genetic resource research, China has emerged as a major producer of oceanic knowledge and platforms.[11] This expansion is underpinned by State-backed deep-sea research infrastructure,[12] including advanced oceanographic vessels and manned submersibles such as Jiaolong.[13] Yet this epistemic power remains domestically bounded. China’s data governance framework, anchored in its Data Security Law (2021)[14] and reinforced through subsequent data classification standards, establishes a hierarchical system allowing authorities to treat certain categories of data –including potentially marine, ecological, and geospatial information[15] — as “core” or “important” based on national security criteria.[16] Data is thus framed not as a neutral scientific commons but as an object of State security and sovereign control,[17] enabling selective openness while retaining discretion over international circulation.
Second, the diplomatic dimension operationalises South–South cooperation as a mechanism of network construction and influence. Under the Belt and Road Initiative’s Blue Economic Corridor, China advances sector-specific partnerships in fisheries governance,[18] marine science, and conservation financing.[19] While framed as capacity-building, these arrangements are predominantly bilateral and hub-and-spoke in design, embedding asymmetric dependencies on Chinese capital, technical expertise, and data platforms.
Third, the institutional dimension reflects China’s role as a norm entrepreneur operating through bureaucratic and technical processes. Influence here derives less from veto power than from procedural authorship—occupying the spaces where standards are defined, compliance metrics designed, and administrative practices routinised.[20] From the International Seabed Authority (ISA)[21] to the Convention on Biological Diversity,[22] and now the BBNJ Agreement, China has leveraged expert committees and working groups to embed sovereignty-sensitive interpretations of environmental obligations.[23]
This pattern is analytically captured by Liu and Scott, who argue that China’s approach to ocean governance has evolved from a largely defensive posture during the UNCLOS negotiations to a more assertive and strategically calibrated position in the BBNJ process, reflecting its transformation into a major maritime power.[24] While China continues to align with developing States on distributive issues such as benefit-sharing and capacity-building, it has adopted more State-centric and sovereignty-preserving positions on procedural governance, particularly in relation to environmental impact assessments and institutional design.[25] The resulting combination of distributive solidarity and procedural caution reveals a broader strategy of strategic adaptation: China supports equity-oriented norms when they advance coalition politics, but seeks flexibility and discretion in technical governance in order to protect national interests and shape emerging ocean regimes from within.
It should be noted, however, that many of these dynamics are not unique to China, but reflect broader structural features of secretariat governance in regimes where scientific authority and technical discretion are central.
Operational Pathways of Normative Drift
- Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs): From Preventive Safeguard to Procedural Compliance
China’s domestic environmental impact assessment (EIA) framework—centralised, hierarchical, and comparatively non-transparent—differs markedly from the participatory and science-driven models that underpin many Western environmental regimes.[26] The Environmental Impact Assessment Law (amended 2018) and the Marine Environmental Protection Law (2017)[27] situate EIA authority within the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, emphasising administrative supervision and political accountability rather than public participation or peer review.[28]
If elements of this administrative logic were to inform BBNJ implementation, EIAs risk deteriorating into procedural compliance exercises rather than robust preventive safeguards. Early technical guidance issued by a Xiamen-based Secretariat could entrench a state-led interpretation of EIAs, prioritising documentation and bureaucratic clearance over independent scrutiny and substantive ecological assessment.[29]
Such a shift would not require any overt manipulation of rules. Rather, it could operate through procedural normalisation—the gradual diffusion of standardised templates, review criteria, and reporting formats that privilege formal compliance over ecological precaution.[30] The result would be a regulatory environment in which activities in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) are increasingly legitimised under weak or deferential review, undermining the preventive logic embedded in Article 22 of the BBNJ Agreement.[31] The principal risk lies not in formal capture but in incremental drift toward permissiveness through routine administrative practice—a pattern long observed in other multilateral environmental regimes where procedural discretion accumulates bureaucratic authority over time.
- Marine Genetic Resources (MGRs) and Benefit-Sharing: Technical Complexity, Non-Monetary Benefits, and Dependency Risk
The Marine Genetic Resources (MGR) pillar remains among the most contested elements of the BBNJ Agreement because it sits at the intersection of science, equity, and economic interest. Experience under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its Nagoya Protocol shows that technically complex benefit-sharing regimes systematically advantage actors with greater scientific and institutional capacity.[32] A China-hosted Secretariat could, over time, prioritise non-monetary benefit-sharing modalities—such as training, equipment, and joint research—over predictable and enforceable monetary mechanisms.[33]
While framed as South–South cooperation, such an approach risks generating dependency structures, in which developing states rely on host-mediated capacity-building rather than enjoying equitable access to genetic data, samples, or downstream intellectual property.
This would replicate the path dependency observed under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), where early technical framing narrowed redistributive options and entrenched managerial rather than transformative governance.[34] The risk, therefore, is not explicit inequity but the gradual consolidation of technocratic dependency—a model in which administrative control over benefit-sharing substitutes for genuine distributive justice.
- Scientific Cooperation and Data Governance: Open Science under Sovereignty Constraints
The BBNJ clearing-house mechanism is premised on open science and free exchange of marine scientific information. Yet China’s data governance regime, grounded in the Data Security Law and related regulations, subjects data access and transfer to national security review. If reflected in secretariat practice, such norms could institutionalise restricted data regimes under the language of cybersecurity and administrative order.[35] The likely outcome would be epistemic stratification rather than outright exclusion: states lacking deep-sea research capacity may become dependent on curated datasets produced and mediated through Chinese institutions, weakening epistemic equality and eroding trust in shared scientific baselines.
This dynamic is reinforced by China’s broader strategic position in contemporary ocean governance. Ongoing maritime disputes in the South China Sea and China’s central role in shaping exploitation standards within the International Seabed Authority place Beijing in a structurally contested relationship with other major maritime powers. In such a context, institutional caution and procedural delay become rational governance strategies, allowing China to minimise exposure to binding constraints that could later be leveraged against its strategic or industrial interests. Applied to the BBNJ regime, this creates strong incentives for sequencing, flexibility, and soft institutionalisation, potentially slowing the consolidation of robust environmental safeguards and compliance mechanisms in areas beyond national jurisdiction.
This makes the choice of Secretariat host institutionally consequential: where strategic rivalries and sovereignty-sensitive governance models prevail, the risk of procedural drift and politicised implementation increases. In this context, a neutral and transparency-oriented host environment is not merely administratively desirable but constitutionally significant, as it shapes how scientific authority is constructed, how information circulates, and how early interpretive practices become embedded as institutional precedent. Over time, these administrative dynamics generate path dependency, as early decisions on data access, expert participation, and procedural sequencing become difficult to reverse, effectively locking in particular models of governance.
Conclusion
China’s bid to host the BBNJ Secretariat reflects a broader shift in global environmental governance from Western-led multilateralism toward a more multipolar and state-centred institutional order. Hosting the Secretariat in Xiamen would symbolically affirm China’s leadership ambitions within the Global South, but it also carries the risk of embedding elements of its domestic governance model—characterised by centralised authority, sovereignty-sensitive regulation, and limited transparency—into the treaty’s operational culture.
Such an outcome would not undermine the BBNJ regime outright, but it could shape its implementation in more subtle ways through procedural sequencing, interpretive framing, and control over institutional tempo. Over time, these dynamics may delay the consolidation of robust environmental safeguards and weaken the regime’s commitment to open science, inclusive participation, and equitable benefit-sharing.
The principal risk posed by a China-hosted Secretariat lies not in overt institutional capture, but in gradual procedural drift—where formally neutral administrative practices generate path dependencies that privilege certain governance models over others. At the same time, China’s bid is not illegitimate; all major powers seek institutional influence through hosting. The issue is thus systemic rather than national: in regimes that depend heavily on scientific coordination and technical discretion, institutional location and administrative culture become critical determinants of epistemic legitimacy.
For the BBNJ Agreement to retain credibility and universality, collective vigilance by States Parties will be essential. In particular, COP-1 should prioritise the adoption of detailed rules on transparency, data access, observer participation, and scientific independence regardless of host location. Only by safeguarding distributed authority and procedural openness can the regime fulfil its original ambition: to serve as a genuinely multilateral framework for the stewardship of the global ocean commons, resistant to domination by any single power.
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About the Author
Dr Chime Youdon is a Research Fellow at the National Maritime Foundation and heads its “Resilience, Sustainability, and Ocean Resources” (RSOR) Cluster. Her research is centred upon climate risk, resilience, and sustainable transitions in the coastal and maritime domain. She works at the intersection of climate science, governance, and ocean policy, with a regional focus on India and the broader Indo-Pacific.
Endnotes:
[1] The Japan Times. “China Bids to Host Secretariat of High Seas Treaty amid Global Governance Vacuum.” January 17, 2026. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/01/17/asia-pacific/politics/china-secretariat-high-seas-treaty/.
[2] The White House. “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Withdraws the United States from International Organizations that Are Contrary to the Interests of the United States.” January 7, 2026. https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/01/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-withdraws-the-united-states-from-international-organizations-that-are-contrary-to-the-interests-of-the-united-states/.
[3]United Nations. Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement). New York: United Nations, 2024. https://www.un.org/bbnjagreement/sites/default/files/2024-08/Text%20of%20the%20Agreement%20in%20English.pdf.
[4] Robin Churchill and Geir Ulfstein. “Autonomous Institutional Arrangements in Multilateral Environmental Agreements: A Little-Noticed Phenomenon in International Law.” American Journal of International Law 94, no. 4 (2000): 623–659. https://doi.org/10.2307/2589775.
[5] Pallavi Kishore. “A Comparative Analysis of Secretariats Created under Select Treaty Regimes.” The International Lawyer 45, no. 4 (2011): 1095–1120. https://scholar.smu.edu/til/vol45/iss4/7.
[6] Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore. Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics.( Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004). https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:154714183
[7] United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Transparency. https://unfccc.int/Transparency
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Observer Handbook for COP 30. Bonn: UNFCCC, 2025. https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/Observer%20Handbook%20for%20COP%2030%20%20%281%29.pdf
[8]Neil Craik, Julian Jackson, Aline Jaeckel, Hannah Lily, Pradeep Singh, and Hope Tracey. “The International Seabed Authority, the Problem of Disregard and the Case for Administrative Accountability.” International & Comparative Law Quarterly, vol. 74, suppl. S1, Law of the Sea: Present Challenges and Future Directions, July 2025, pp. 267–289. Cambridge University Press, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020589325101012.
[9] Bharat H. Desai, Multilateral Environmental Agreements: Legal Status of the Secretariats (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/multilateral-environmental-agreements/03E76C7751FD1FB3E618436E0740AED8.
[10] Xinhuanet. Xi proposes building maritime community with shared future. (2019, April 23). https://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-04/23/c_138001104.htm
[11] Qi Xu and Ziyue Tan. “Building a Maritime Community with a Shared Future: Scholarly Reflections on China’s New Ocean Vision.” Marine Policy 149 (March 2023): 105508. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2023.105508
[12] Rear Admiral Monty Khanna. “China’s Deep Sea Research Capabilities: Part I – National Deep Sea Center, Qingdao.” National Maritime Foundation. (Dabolim Diaries Issue No 9), 4 March 2025. https://maritimeindia.org/chinas-deep-sea-research-capabilities-part-i-national-deep-sea-center-qingdao/
[13] Weicheng Cui, Lian Lian, and Dahai Zhang. Frontiers in Deep-Sea Equipment and Technology II. Basel, Switzerland: MDPI AG, 2024. Reprint of a Special Issue of Journal of Marine Science and Engineering. 2024, 12, 635, doi:10.3390/jmse12040635.
[14] National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China. Data Security Law of the People’s Republic of China(English translation). December 9, 2021. http://www.npc.gov.cn/englishnpc/c2759/c23934/202112/t20211209_385109.html.
[15]Simmons & Simmons, “Key Takeaways from Draft Data Regulation Issued by China’s CB,” Simmons & Simmons, 16 August 2023, https://www.simmons-simmons.com/en/publications/clld78j9c0118th1sw9p7c8db/key-takeaways-from-draft-data-regulation-issued-by-china-s-cb.
[16] National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China. Data Security Law of the People’s Republic of China(English translation). December 9, 2021. http://www.npc.gov.cn/englishnpc/c2759/c23934/202112/t20211209_385109.html.
[17] Arendse Huld.“China Data Protection Regulations in 2023 and 2024 Outlook.” China Briefing. November 22, 2023. https://www.china-briefing.com/news/china-data-protection-regulations-2023-2024/.
[18] Zhang, Shijun, M. Jahanzeb Butt, Ali M.A. Iqatish, and Khadija Zulfiqar. “China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) under the Vision of ‘Maritime Community with a Shared Future’ and Its Impacts on Global Fisheries Governance.” Heliyon 9, no. 4 (April 12, 2023): e15398. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e15398.
[19] State Council Information Office (SCIO). “Vision for Maritime Cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative.” June 20, 2017. https://english.www.gov.cn/archive/publications/2017/06/20/content_281475691873460.htm.
[20] Biermann, Frank, and Bernd Siebenhüner, eds. Managers of Global Change: The Influence of International Environmental Bureaucracies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009.
[21]International Seabed Authority. “ISA Secretary-General Concludes High-Level Visit to China Resulting in Renewed Cooperation in Support of the Mandate of ISA and the Implementation of Its Global Deep-Sea Research Agenda.” Press release, 7 June 2024. International Seabed Authority, Kingston, Jamaica. https://www.isa.org.jm/news/isa-secretary-general-concludes-high-level-visit-to-china/ https://isa.org.jm/news/isa-secretary-general-concludes-high-level-visit-to-china/
[22] Morgera, Elisa, Elsa Tsioumani, and Matthias Buck. Unraveling the Nagoya Protocol. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
[23] Johnston, Alastair Iain. Social States: China in International Institutions, 1980–2000. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.
Also see:
[24] Nengye Liu and Shirley V Scott. “China in the UNCLOS and BBNJ Negotiations, Yesterday Once More?” Leiden Journal of International Law 38, no. 2 (June 2025): 168–187. Published online November 25, 2024. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/leiden-journal-of-international-law/article/china-in-the-unclos-and-bbnj-negotiations-yesterday-once-more/24163158C9D43FAF8FF5116F67813620
[25] Ibid
[26] Yifei Li and Judith Shapiro. China Goes Green: Coercive Environmental for a Troubled Planet. Cambridge: Policy Press. 2020. https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=china-goes-green-coercive-environmentalism-for-a-troubled-planet–9781509543113
Also See: Ran Ran. Book Reviews, China and Inner Asia. “China Goes Green: Coercive Environmentalism for a Troubled Planet, by Yifei Li and Judith Shapiro.” The Journal of Asian Studies 95, no. 1 (2020): 245–246. https://pacificaffairs.ubc.ca/book-reviews/china-goes-green-coercive-environmentalism-for-a-troubled-planet-by-yifei-li-and-judith-shapiro/
[27] Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. Environmental Impact Assessment Law of the People’s Republic of China (as amended 2018). Beijing: NPC, 2018. https://english.mee.gov.cn/Resources/laws/environmental_laws/202012/t20201204_811509.shtml
[28] Kostka, Genia, and Jonas Nahm. “Central–Local Relations: Recentralization and Environmental Governance in China.” The China Quarterly 231 (August 2017): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741017001011.
[29] Jinlong Feng. “Thinking Like the Ocean: The Ecosystem Approach in the BBNJ Agreement and Its Challenges.” International Environmental Agreements (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-025-09697-7
[30] Michael Barnett, and Martha Finnemore. Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt7z7mx
[31] United Nations. Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction. August 2024. https://www.un.org/bbnjagreement/sites/default/files/2024-08/Text%20of%20the%20Agreement%20in%20English.pdf.
[32] Evanson Kamau, Bevis Fedder, and Gerd Winter. “The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing: What Is New and What Are the Implications for Provider and User Countries and the Scientific Community?” Law, Environment and Development Journal 6, no. 3 (2010): 246–262. http://www.lead-journal.org/content/10246.pdf
[33] Nengye Liu and Shirley V Scott. “China in the UNCLOS and BBNJ Negotiations, Yesterday Once More?” Leiden Journal of International Law 38, no. 2 (June 2025): 168–187. Published online November 25, 2024. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/leiden-journal-of-international-law/article/china-in-the-unclos-and-bbnj-negotiations-yesterday-once-more/24163158C9D43FAF8FF5116F67813620
[34] Robin Churchill and Geir Ulfstein. “Autonomous Institutional Arrangements in Multilateral Environmental Agreements: A Little-Noticed Phenomenon in International Law.” American Journal of International Law 94, no. 4 (2000): 623–659. https://doi.org/10.2307/2589775
[35] Nengye Liu and Shirley V Scott. “China in the UNCLOS and BBNJ Negotiations, Yesterday Once More?” Leiden Journal of International Law 38, no. 2 (June 2025): 168–187. Published online November 25, 2024.
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