Area-based Management Tools (ABMTs), including Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)
Since the first session, informal working groups have come together to discuss ABMTs and their application. Discussions focused on objectives, relationship with other instruments, process, including decision-making and consultation, duration, monitoring and review.
The implementation of ABMTs can be established in two forms: rules that will be taken by all countries or taken by a global body that will represent them all.
Countries must put in place a coherent process to fight fragmentation, this process should focus on coordination and cooperation between countries, existing regional bodies and bodies on the basis of cooperation agreements.
The organization also needs to establish standards, objectives and priority areas always with the cooperation and coordination between it and the regional bodies. However, it must always consider the implementation of the objectives.
The proposal common to all is the need to promote coherence, complementarity and synergies with other frameworks and bodies, but also that the international legally binding instrument (ILBI) should not undermine the rights of coastal States.
But there were also points of divergence that needed to be discussed, namely the standards and criteria for ABMTs and MPAs, the scientific evaluation modalities and the decision-making mechanisms within the framework of the ABMTs.