Box Story: Collaboration on a Historic Multinational Agreement to Protect Marine Biodiversity

Singapore’s collaboration on international partnerships does not just involve the pursuit of cooperative bilateral agreements with other countries or between resident agencies and their counterparts. One of the key planks of Singapore’s collaborative approach to international partnerships is its consistent commitment to multilateralism, which has become even more crucial in helping Singapore and its partners meet the urgent challenges of reducing carbon emissions, deal with the negative impacts of climate change, as well as preserve natural environments that are threatened worldwide.

Significant examples of this collaborative approach to multilateral partnerships are given not just through the work of Singapore’s agencies but from that of notable resident individuals like Rena Lee, Singapore’s Ambassador for Oceans and Law of the Sea Issues (2018–2023). As the president of negotiations at the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), Ambassador Lee oversaw talks among more than 190 countries leading to the historic United Nations High Seas Treaty on 4 March 2023.

The BBNJ Agreement will help to preserve the world’s marine biodiversity (Unsplash)

The BBNJ Agreement is the culmination of discussions that began in 2004 under the auspices of the United Nations to enhance the international legal regime concerning the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity in the oceans beyond the exclusive economic zones and continental shelves of states. Despite being extremely biodiverse, only 1% of the high seas is currently regulated. The BBNJ Agreement is therefore a major step forward in contributing to the governance of the global commons.

Singapore had presided over negotiations of the Agreement since September 2018, and Rena Lee’s work to shepherd the negotiations towards agreement was widely lauded, with British newspaper The Guardian noting that she “received cheers and a standing ovation from delegates in the room who had not left the conference hall for two days and worked through the night in order to get the deal done.” Her work and Singapore’s commitment to multilateral partnerships were also commended as “a victory for multilateralism” by the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who saluted Ambassador Lee for her leadership and dedication.

Ambassador Lee’s role in representing Singapore’s commitment to multilateral and international partnerships won her recognition as one of Time magazine’s List of the World’s 100 Most Influential People, where it was noted that “with calm dignity, determination, and grace, Lee successfully led deliberations to legally protect biodiversity within the blue heart of the planet, the cornerstone of earth’s life-support system”, and that “we all should applaud her heroic moves, breaking decades of deadlock over governance of human actions that impact not just the future of tunas, sharks, squids, and whales, but that of all of life on earth—humans included.”

Ambassador Lee’s achievements not only show that it is possible for a small state like Singapore to shape international discourse on critical issues and be an influential and strategic partner on the global stage, it exemplifies how individual residents can make a difference in addressing important global challenges.

Agreements like the BBNJ will help the coexistence of humans and marine life (Unsplash)