"Whose Ocean?" Assembly

Thursday 30 January 2025 from 13:00 to 18:00

The ocean is vital for life on earth and climate, yet its voice is rarely heard in law and political decision-making. It is completely unclear who is meant when bodies like the UN speak of 'our oceans'. It is also uncertain who has the right to lay claim to the ocean or represent it in international politics and law. This leads to problems in the case of, for example, deep-sea mining. How will the ocean's interests be served if it is unclear who to hold accountable for damage to its ecosystem?

Utrecht University, NIOZ, Embassy of the North Sea and Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, invite you to join the discussion on these matters in an Assembly at Theater de Regentes in The Hague on 30 January. Through this assembly, we aim to challenge the current ways the ocean is represented and explore alternatives. We'd love for you to be part of the journey!

We will discuss how a voice of a more-than-human entity such as the ocean can be listened to, articulated, and amplified for a context of (international) policy development and protection of the ocean. This builds upon many recent developments around rights of nature (e.g., the Lagoon Mar Menor in Spain) and emerging crisis/stress in ocean ecosystems. It further builds on (centuries-old) debates and practices around the ocean as ‘blue commons’ (common to all), bringing and reframing these debates and practices in a non-anthropocentric perspective.

In the Assembly you are invited to join a working group. These working groups will scrutinise and rewrite existing ocean treaties from the perspective of non-human ocean inhabitants. These working groups are:

Jellyfish: Moves in all layers of the ocean from the deep sea to the surf. Thrives well with warming of the sea.
Polymetallic nodule: This is a lifeless thing, but it does house all kinds of life. It may well be a unique ecosystem in itself. Nodules are central to the deep-sea mining discussion.
Seagull: The seagull co-lives with humans around the sea. Seagulls eat caught fish and make use of human infrastructure. This lens thus also has to do with human aspects such as labour and history.

The significance of the assembly we propose lies in its attention to the complexity of oceanic relations: ecosystemic relations within the ocean itself, the relation of the ocean and the land, mutual dependance of social and environmental forces related to oceanic pollution and exploitation, and the inherently international context, as more than half of the ocean falls beyond coastal State jurisdiction. For this, we will develop a shared approach informed by the collaboration across natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and arts.

Join us on the road to the assembly, and help to propose a communal relationship doctrine for the stewardship of the ocean!