Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Act 2026

Overview of the Act

Reproduced verbatim from the Explanatory Notes published with the Act on legislation.gov.uk (Crown Copyright, Open Government Licence v3.0). Explanatory Notes are prepared by the responsible government department and are not part of the Act.

This legislation, along with subsequent secondary legislation, enables the United Kingdom (UK) to implement 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 (the BBNJ Agreement) UN Text of BBNJ Agreement 1 . Before it can ratify the Agreement, the UK must be able to implement its international obligations in full.

The Act contains 33 sections and one schedule, addressing three of the four substantive parts of the BBNJ Agreement, Part II: Marine Genetic Resources including the fair and equitable sharing of benefits, Part III: Measures such as Area-Based Management Tools, including Marine Protected Areas, and, insofar as it relates to marine licensing, Part IV: Environmental Impact Assessments. The other parts of the BBNJ Agreement are not specifically covered in this Act as they do not require new legislation for the UK to meet its obligations under the Agreement. An explanation of the contents of the other parts is included in the Explanatory Memorandum provided in Command Paper no. 942 2 .

1 https://www.un.org/bbnjagreement/sites/default/files/2024-08/Text%20of%20the%20Agreement%20in%20English.pdf

2 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 [MS No.9/2023] - GOV.UK https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/agreement-under-the-united-nations-convention-on-the-law-of-the-sea-on-the-conservation-and-sustainable-use-of-marine-biological-diversity-of-areas-be