Implications of existing capacity building efforts for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction: A case study of Japan

Capacity building and the transfer of marine technology (CB&TT) are key parts of negotiations at Intergovernmental Conferences on an international legally binding instrument regarding the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ). Throughout the negotiations, divergent views persisted among governments. One possible reason for such a situation is the lack of comprehensive understanding of existing CB&TT efforts. In this case study, we assessed how these existing efforts could contribute to capacity building for the effective implementation of a newly proposed BBNJ agreement. A review of CB&TT projects implemented by Japanese organizations showed that there was a significant amount of efforts relevant to BBNJ (157 cases between 2010 and 2020, which cost about USD 4.3 billion in total). We also found that many of them provided platforms that could be applied to CB&TT for BBNJ. However, projects specifically tailored for BBNJ were still limited. Furthermore, there were several lessons from existing efforts that could provide useful insights for future initiatives. Given a higher priority of many countries to coastal areas and the exclusive economic zone, new capacity building should focus on not only areas beyond national jurisdiction, but also the other areas to manage the ocean as a whole. Lastly, recommendations are advanced to the UN member states on discussing how to build future initiatives of CB&TT upon existing efforts.