This process would address ‘together and as a whole’ four key topics:
marine genetic resources, including questions on the sharing of benefits
measures such as area-based management tools, including marine protected areas
environmental impact assessments
capacity-building and the transfer of marine technology (at para I 1(b)).
Political support for a new agreement under the LOSC gained momentum at the 2012 UN
Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), where States committed themselves to
urgently address the issue of the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity of
ABNJ, specifically by agreeing to decide by the end of the sixty-ninth session of the General
Assembly whether to develop an international instrument to address this matter under the
umbrella of the LOSC (A/RES/66/288, at para 162).
In 2013, the BBNJ Working Group was charged with making recommendations on the scope,
parameters and feasibility of an international instrument under the LOSC to the sixty-ninth
session of the General Assembly (A/RES/68/70, at paras 198-200; see also A/RES/69/245, at
para 214). In January 2015, at its final meeting on this matter, the BBNJ Working Group made
the important recommendation to the General Assembly by consensus that it inter alia ‘[d]ecide
to develop an international legally binding instrument under the Convention on the conservation
and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction …’
(A/69/780, at para I 1(e)).