China’s Declaration to the BBNJ Agreement
Strategic Multilateralism and Tactical Utilisation of Treaty Mechanisms
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22417263 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jianping Guo (0000-0001-8530-8976, School of Law, Xi’an Jiaotong University Xi’an, Shaanxi China), Vito De Lucia (0000-0002-8099-0029, Faculty of Law, Norwegian Centre for the Law of the Sea, UiT The Arctic University of Norway Tromsø Norway) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-13 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-18 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0927-3522 • E-ISSN: 1571-8085 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/15718085-20261030 |
| OpenAlex | W7165374466 |
| Language | EN |
China ratified the 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) on 15 December 2025. This was accompanied by three declaratory statements. This commentary analyses China’s declarations, with the view of assessing their legal import and their substantive significance in relation to the limitation to the temporal scope of the Agreement, the question of disputed areas, consensus-oriented decision-making, and the ‘not undermine’ principle. Through the declarations, we suggest, China strategically positions itself within a framework of multilateral cooperation while tactically seeking to insulate its core sovereign and economic interests from excessive legal spillover.
China · Declaration · International law · Jurisdiction · Law of the sea · Multilateralism · Sovereignty · Treaty · United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea · Coastal and Marine Management · International Environmental Law and Policies · International Maritime Law Issues
| Highly cited | No |
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