Beyond national waters, two-thirds of the ocean belong to everyone, and almost no rule protects them. President Macky Sall has made the protection of the high seas one of the priorities of his candidacy for UN Secretary-General.
A common space, long without rules. The high seas begin where states' jurisdictions end and cover the greater part of the ocean's surface. For want of common rules, that space stayed open to overfishing and to exploitation no one oversaw, each drawing from it without accounting to anyone.
The 2023 treaty. That year, states adopted at the United Nations a treaty on the high seas, which at last allows marine protected areas to be created there. Ratified by sixty states in September 2025, it entered into force on 17 January 2026; many states have yet to join it for its rules to apply everywhere.
Climate and food at stake. The ocean absorbs about a quarter of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity and a large share of its excess heat, and it feeds billions of people. Its decline, through warming, acidification and plastic, strikes first the coastal and island states that contributed least to it.
Pressing for ratification. Patrolling the seas lies beyond the Secretary-General's reach. He can, however, press states to ratify the treaty, whose marine protected areas will give common rules to this common good, and keep the ocean on the agenda of peace and development.
Negotiation in the service of the ocean. To secure those ratifications, President Macky Sall draws on twelve years as head of state and on the chairmanship of the African Union in 2022. The same experience set the form of the vision statement filed with the United Nations, whose proposals (development conceived together with peace and security, a renewed multilateralism, a better-governed Organization) are written as obligations.
Africa at its heart, the world in its sights.
The United Nations treaty on the high seas, adopted in 2023, is public. Read all public positions at www.mackysall.net