The BBNJ Agreement as a Cooperation and Coordination Framework for the Conservation of Marine Biodiversity in Areas beyond National Jurisdiction in the Arctic Region: An Introduction to the Special Issue

This special issue builds on an event held in Singapore in February 2025 in the context of the second BBNJ Symposium.1 As a follow-up to the event, the articles in this special issue explore in detail the potential role of the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) to function as a cooperation and coordination framework with and among other instruments, frameworks, and bodies (IFBs).2 It does so with respect to a particular region—the Arctic—which is an especially complex regional case given its normative and institutional density. And it does so in the context of an ongoing project on Arctic governance and sustainability.3 The Arctic is arguably a particularly useful regional test for assessing how the BBNJ Agreement might interact, and especially cooperate and coordinate, with other relevant IFBs given its significant normative and institutional density.