High seas are the silent waves of nations ends. They are the end of a right to inherent ownership. They are, the proof that exists a place in our administrative global were no one is more entitled to this place than someone else.
Of course, it is not either a place in which, whatever that could be found would be shared; however, it is a canvas virgin of ownership.
It is, finally, like the last embers of a new global architectural promise living in the fire pit of the room we are gathering in, allowing hopes of a renewed warmth.
Tomorrow, the Treaty of the High Seas will likely be signed.
The impact that this treaty could have could be immense. However, what I would like to do is to give couple of ideas that could be integrated in this treaty to further all the potentials that the High Seas as a territory virgin of statehood offers, outside of the inherent goals pursued directly by the treaty.
Every one person’s action is an opportunity to create new grounds for those who would have come its way. Every one text is an opportunity to create new grounds for those who come its way. We need to create an opportunity for future texts to see the paths that were demarcated by this Treaty as an invitation for them to explore, perceive and eventually sharpen those latter.
Many nations don’t have state. I think that we have to take the opportunity of this Treaty to introduce new ideas for the global order sub-textually through the notion of the Highs Seas.
Indeed:
High Seas might be the transitory location of stateless territory. (Until a path is sharpen)
High Seas might be the answer to non-discrimination towards ressources as it might one day be globally.
High Seas might be the disappearing border of a passport-less global world understood through the notion of the seaman.
Hence, in preparation of the history that necessarily gonna be written, we have to start introducing the terminology that will help us making the arguments that we will have to make.
Could we demand High Seas to host sovereign states under the promise of non extraction and non-construction? Could nation such as the International Romani Union could make sense of such a possibility?
Could we argue that the lack of entitlement by any states to the ressources of the High Seas should not merely be congruent to the inherent definition of the High Seas but that the benefices of any extractions should be shared by the international community?
Should we impose that the High Seas would be the proof of concept that a state and the rights that are inhabited by one citizen, are inherent to himself, not to the existence of a territory reaffirming its limits everyday?
Nothing in our world is fundamentally isolated from the rest. It is not merely about acknowledging it, it is also about taking the next steps to live through this snowball effect, since it is what the blueball (ie. Earth) cannot but help itself doing.
I hope those ideas could have the opportunity to be considered before this new accomplishment for the protection the biodiversity is eventually signed. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Victoire Mandonnaud
vem2126@columbia.edu