The High Seas Treaty will officially come into force on January 17th.

The Treaty on Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ for its English acronym) or the High Seas Treaty will come into force on January 17, 2026, once the minimum required ratification of 60 countries has been achieved to adopt it as international law. The ratification of four more countries in recent days - Morocco, Sierra Leone, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Sri Lanka - has paved the way for an agreement that has cost five years of intense negotiations and has in recent months garnered sufficient support for its implementation. Spain is one of the European countries that has most strongly advocated for this agreement and, in fact, was the first EU country to ratify it in early February of this year at the UN headquarters in New York, where this Monday the third deputy prime minister and minister for the Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen, participates in the event of the country's adherence to the Oceans Pioneer Coalition, the group of ...