Many knowledges for One Ocean

Havice, Elizabeth, Gray, Noella J., Hartman Davies, Oscar, Legroux, Nadège, Lehman, Jessica, Melvin, Peters, Kimberley, Quesnot, Teriitutea, Vadrot, Alice B.M. and Campbell, Lisa (2026). Many knowledges for One Ocean. npj ocean sustainability https://doi.org/10.1038/s44183-026-00231-z

Abstract
The international ocean community gathered in Nice, France, in June 2025 under a One Ocean framing that unified participants around work for sustainable and equitable oceans. We explore ways that the One Ocean Science shared at the One Ocean Science Congress (OOSC) – including new data technologies promising ‘complete’ ocean renderings – makes space for difference in ocean knowledges and ways of knowing. Drawing on our work on new data technologies, oceans governance, and our participant observation at OOSC and the Third United Nations Oceans Conference, we explore three sites where universalism and difference were evident at the meetings: the propensity to render the oceans technical rather than political; the persistence of gaps as a defining feature of One Ocean Science; and sciences and knowledges incommensurable with One Ocean Science universalism. We highlight that One Ocean Science universalism is, perhaps counterintuitively, constituted through differences and heterogeneities in scientific practices and politics. Manifesting the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development’s goals of ocean science that fosters equity and sustainability will require holding space for difference within One Ocean, including by interrogating and redesigning the epistemological infrastructure of One Ocean Science so that pluralism becomes structural rather than residual.

Negotiating Futures: Three Visions for the International Seabed Authority

Hildebrand, Emil W., Vadrot, Alice B.M. (2026) Negotiating Futures: Three Visions for the International Seabed Authority. Geopolitics, 1-36. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2026.2721460

Abstract

Amid increasing challenges to the prospect of deep-sea mining in international waters, states may need to radically rethink the raison d’être of the International Seabed Authority (ISA). Drawing on futuring approaches and discursive institutionalism, we construct three radically different visions for the ISA’s future: mining regulator, marine scientific research institution, and environmental custodian. Using a complete set of negotiation statements from the ISA’s 30th Session in 2025 and employing an LLM-based approach, we identify the discursive seeds of these visions in statements made by state actors at the ISA to map where impulses for such futures may already exist. We find that vested interests in deep-sea mining help explain observed patterns, whereas geographical and development status differences between states do not. Importantly, we find a gap between the ISA secretariat and its member states, indicating a need for the ISA to reassess its role in governing the Area.

Process without progress: the sixth session of negotiations on a treaty to end plastic pollution (INC-5.2)

Cowan, Emily, Haug Fossbakk, Rachel, Fischer, Karl, Nütz, Felix, Tiller, Theodore, Maes, Thomas (2026). Process without progress: the sixth session of negotiations on a treaty to end plastic pollution (INC-5.2). Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-026-01126-8

Abstract

The second part of the fifth session of the UN’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5.2) on plastic pollution was held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva from 5 to 15 August 2025. Despite a sense of urgency, 2,600 participants, including delegations from 183 countries and hundreds of observers, negotiators left Geneva without consensus on a final agreement. Delegates decided to put the negotiations on pause, demonstrating a continued commitment but deep divergences in opinions over core aspects of the agreement, such as scope and ambition, inclusion of additives, production controls, and financing mechanisms. Drawing on our ethnographic participant observation methodology and analysis of official documents, this paper outlines the negotiation dynamics and assesses how the emerging treaty text developed over the negotiation session at INC-5.2, and if no treaty is to come from this process, what alternatives there may be outside the formal negotiation process.

From data rationales to data infrastructure: Implications for the BBNJ clearing-house mechanism

Lyu, Wenwen, Langlet-Uranüs, Arne, Vadrot, Alice B.M. (2026). From data rationales to data infrastructure: Implications for the BBNJ clearing-house mechanism. Marine Policy. 188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2026.107079

Abstract

Data plays a crucial dual role for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biodiversity in Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) – the BBNJ Agreement. While data underpins much of the implementation of the BBNJ Agreement and provisions related to all four package elements, the Agreement itself will also shape how data is governed, particularly through the Clearing-House Mechanism (ClHM), its data infrastructure. This article analyses the implications of the BBNJ process for data governance in ABNJ by looking into the discussions on ‘data’ within the negotiation room, particularly those on the design of the ClHM. To conceptualize this process, we introduce the concept of ‘data rationales’ describing the expectations, understandings and interests expressed by different actors in relation to data. These data rationales are validated, reinforced, and reproduced through the making of the ClHM, the data infrastructure of BBNJ that shapes the overarching data rationality for data governance in ABNJ. Drawing on observation data from the BBNJ negotiations, we identified 835 observations where ‘data’ was referenced. Through an iterative and inductive coding process, these observations were categorized into ten ‘BBNJ Data Rationales’. We further analyzed how these rationales interact in discussions on the design of ClHM and identified twelve key questions to inform the ongoing negotiations. We argue that the BBNJ process provides a unique opportunity to shape more equitable data governance in ABNJ by enabling actors to articulate and negotiate their priorities among competing data rationales in the design of the ClHM.

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