For this reason, there are limits to what can be done to protect the marine flora and fauna in this unregulated part of the world’s oceans. According to the UN, around 5.3 per cent of the entire marine area is protected, while only 0.25 per cent of the high seas is protected. This has now led to significant overfishing and severe pollution, as for instance large-scale trawling has resulted in the devastation of the sea floor for years to come and has depleted once-abundant fish stocks. But the international waters harbour more than just fish. Massive plankton populations not only serve as food for sea dwellers, but they also bind enormous amounts of carbon dioxide out of the air every year. The high seas absorb an estimated 1.5 billion tons of CO2 annually, which directly helps to regulate the global climate.

After more than ten years of debate, the UN General Assembly therefore voted on a resolution to convene a conference for an international treaty on the protection of marine biodiversity and the regulation of the high seas for the first time on 24 December 2017. Led by Mexico and New Zealand, the resolution was supported by 141 states – more than the required two-thirds majority. Over the next two years, an intergovernmental conference will negotiate a legally binding agreement under the current United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, to be signed by the member states at the end of 2020.

Such an agreement under international law would be the first convention ever to address the negative environmental impact of economic activities such as fishing and maritime traffic, and it could create a global system for the coordination of environmental protection and the sustainable use of the sea. Measures such as catch quotas for commercial fishing and scientific monitoring of fish stocks could be introduced. Furthermore, a ‘Paris Agreement for the Oceans’ inspired by the international convention on climate change could underpin efforts to create marine conservation areas in international waters, which could have a significant positive effect on climate change and the sustainable regeneration of fish stocks.

Although the recently launched negotiations send a strong signal for the conservation of the high seas, many challenges still stand in the way of the implementation. The actual scope of the convention and what it contains will only become apparent in 2020 at the earliest. Until then, the ten biggest fishing nations will also have to get on board; these include Iceland, Japan, Spain and South Korea, who are responsible for 71 per cent of the catch on the high seas. Moreover, the key to the success of the convention will be the effectiveness of its implementation. Only if the signatory nations are truly committed to applying the regulations consistently through measures such as improved satellite technology and better monitoring could this agreement really pave the way for a real Paris Agreement for the Oceans.

This article was published in February’s issue of the Diplomatic Magazine.

For these proposals to be noticed and to influence policy making, we cooperate with senior politicians, entrepreneurs and civil society representatives both via the dialogue in this publication as well as during the LACalytics Conference, taking place from the 22nd to the 25th of October 2016 in Hamburg, Germany.

It is against this background that we express our gratitude to all individuals and organisations who cooperate with the programme, may it be by distributing our call for application, publishing and sharing the analyses online or by contributing to this publication and the conference. We are especially thanking our cooperation partners, the EU-LAC Foundation and the German Federal Foreign Office, as well as the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. Lastly, we kindly invite anyone who finds inspiration in our work to get in touch for future cooperations with LACalytics.

The final LACalytics policy paper can be found here:

English:                                 Spanish:

LACalytics runs under the patronage of Dieter Lamlé, Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the German Federal Foreign Office, and in cooperation with the EU-LAC Foundation. The project aims at fostering the understanding and cooperation between the European Union (EU) and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Since February 2016, 46 young researchers and professionals form the EU and LAC have worked together in bi-regional teams to examine mutual interests and problems in the fields of politics, environment, economy and civil society and to formulate policy recommendations.

The best twelve analyses are published in a printed publication by CISS, and their authors are invited to attend the LACalytics Conference and its concluding event. The event takes place on Tuesday, the 25th of October 2016, and is kindly hosted by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg in the Hamburg Town Hall. The subsequent reception will provide room for more informal discussions.

Event details

Date: Tuesday, 25 October 2016

Time: 18.00h – 21.00h

Location: Hamburg Town Hall, Kaisersaal, Rathausmarkt 1, 20095 Hamburg

Schedule

18.00: Doors open

18.15 – 18.45: Introduction

• Welcome Address by Theresa Lieb, Regional Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean and Executive Board Member of CISS
• Welcome Address by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg
• Opening Remarks by Wiltrud Kern, Deputy Head for Cono Sur States, Brazil, and Fundamental Issues of LAC in the German Federal Foreign Office

18.45 – 19.45: Panel Discussion and Q&A

• Topic: EU-LAC Cooperation in the 21st Century: Combining Efforts in a Globalised World
• Panellists  Danielle Edwards (LACalytics), Claudia Wiese (LACalytics), Dr Mark Heinzel (DIHK), Dr Anna Barrera (EU-LAC Foundation), Presenter: Alexandra Endres (ZEIT ONLINE)

19.45 – 21.00: Reception

Please note that registering for the event via the following link is required: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lacalytics-panel-discussion-tickets-28527177556

Please don’t hesitate to contact the LACalytics Team in case you have any questions. We look forward to welcoming you to Hamburg!

Yours sincerely,

Theresa Lieb, Leonard Fried, Johannes Klein, Joanna Klever & Fabian Scheifele

Therefore, one may wonder what has been and could be done to further consolidate and strengthen this much-advocated partnership of both regions. Given the economic growth Latin America has witnessed during the last years, it comes as no surprise that the economic character of the relationship has given rise to a central role of trade and investment. The EU signed trade agreements with Central America (2013) as well as with the Caribbean (2008) and is linked to Mexico, Chile, Peru and Colombia through Economic Partnership Agreements. However, the negotiations on a comprehensive trade agreement with Mercosur, as part of the overall negotiations towards a bi-regional Association Agreement, have stalled.

The political importance of the partnership was recognized and acknowledged strategically during the last years. Since 2013 regional summits between the EU and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean states (CELAC) take place every two years while the EU-LAC Foundation aims to strengthen the bi-regional partnership. In 2015 the first ever high-level intergovernmental negotiations between the two region’s economically most important countries, Germany and Brazil, led to the common declaration of the wish to reinvigorate negotiations for a balanced, comprehensive and ambitious Association Agreement between Mercosur and the EU to continuously foster the strategic partnership.

In order to strengthen the ongoing dialogue and to spread awareness of its ever bigger importance from the political sphere to civil society, and especially to young people, CISS launched its new Impact Group LACalytics in 2016. LACalytics is a project facilitating interregional cooperation of students and young professionals from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in the field of international relations. Under the patronage of the Federal Foreign Office 46 students and young professionals from Europe and Latin America are currently working in bi-regional teams to develop in-depth analyses of current topics in Latin American politics, economics and social life as well as EU-LAC relations. Providing unique perspectives on these topics through the lens of young people, analyses range from the EU and LAC´s role in fighting climate change to the influence of social movements in the two regions to the effects of TTIP on LAC´s youth.

Therefore, LACalytics is not only a unique opportunity to connect young people from both regions, but also encourages a focused discussion on EU-LAC relations, thus fostering international understanding and building lasting bridges. The publication of the articles in cooperation with international partner organisations, later collected in a printed policy-paper publication, will further increase the impact of young interregional experts on interregional governance and create awareness for LAC specific issues in Europe. Finally, the recommendations by our authors will be presented to principal EU-LAC stakeholders during a concluding conference in October 2016.

Altogether, LACalytics is CISS´s most recent initiative aiming to increase interregional understanding as well as to raise young people’s impact on foreign policy making.

This article is part of CISS’s cooperation with the Diplomatic Magazine and was published there first in the issue 07/2016.