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OCEANFRIENDSThe balikBalangay comports itself as a Track 1 ½ organization – it is neither a governmental agency nor a purely academic entity. It is a private law and policy “think tank” that undertakes practical implementation projects. Oceanfriends plays the latter role and its early accomplishments were tied to the ocean policy governance thrust of the Maritime and Ocean Affairs Center (MOAC) under the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Technical Cooperation Council of the Philippines (TCCP) also under the Department of Foreign Affairs. On the part of Oceanfriends, this Track 1 partnership is consistent with its ocean conservation advocacy under balikBalangay. The Track 1 partnership has been terminated and the legal/policy aspect, as explained later, is now assigned to the Center for Archipelagic and Regional Seas Law and Policy Studies subsequently established under balikBalangay.
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Who We Are
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Center for Archipelagic and Regional Seas Law and Policy Studies
The “Center” is the “think tank” counterpart of Oceanfriends in implementing ocean governance. In modern times, ocean governance necessarily involves the application of marine science, and a law and policy structure to define the uses of the sea. This is the essence of UNCLOS - conventional international law and policy underpinned by marine science. These two component and interacting elements of ocean governance, however, have generally been regarded as separable, and pursued as separate disciplines. Post-conference UNCLOS history manifests a dynamism of these separate disciplines. To serve regional ocean governance for the seas of maritime Asia, it is clearly evident that the dynamism in both areas must be harmonized and reconciled; progressing in tandem. In maritime Asia, UNCLOS provisions have not seen generally acceptable interpretations and there is prospect for more controversies in the future. Specific areas of concern to the region is UNCLOS Part IV on archipelagic States (which is essentially, about the regime of archipelagic waters) and Part IX on enclosed and semi-enclosed seas. These are the two new normative regimes demonstrating the marriage of science and law/policy, in what the UN Charter calls “progressive development”. Questions relating to maritime jurisdictional regimes also adds to the ongoing and latent controversies. It is only in this maritime region of the world that customary international law of the sea; including those already codified in UNCLOS, cannot fully address the complicated mix of issues presented by jurisdictional prescriptions and the demands of marine conservation of resources, environment and biodiversity. Never is this relationship between science and law/policy more critical than in maritime Southeast/East Asia. It is in the foregoing sense and purpose that balikBalangay advocacy straddle marine science and policy, pursued in a complementarity relationship through its twin pillars: (1) Oceanfriends and (2) Center for Archipelagic and Regional Seas Law and Policy Studies. Flashback and backstory – it was in this manner, as earlier indicated, that the Philippines Maritime Oceans Affairs Unit (MOAU) under the Secretary of Foreign Affairs was redesigned/reenergineered into MOAC to meet new challenges in ocean governance impacting on national interests. With the MOAU upgraded to the Maritime Ocean Affairs Centre (MOAC) advising the Cabinet Committee on Maritime and Oceans Affairs (CABCOM-MOA) on Track 1 dress now defunct, the balikBalangay aspires to take up the challenge left by these gaps. To establish maritime peace, good order and security in maritime Asia that would facilitate regional/global trade and help alleviate rising tensions arising from maritime issues, it is necessary to develop or adapt a regional ocean governance scheme more responsive to the specific/peculiar requirements of the region. The seas of maritime Asia are unique in the world because of common characteristic regional features that host the highest and most delicate marine environment, biodiversity and resources which are extremely vulnerable to environmental degradation arising from unbridled exploitation of resources, pollution from land-based sources, and shipping activities. In another view, while the UNCLOS is also designed and intended for universal application – the Constitution of the Oceans, it is generally conceded at the same time to suffer imperfections and deficiencies in its progressive development aspect. Many of these imperfections/deficiencies are somehow attenuated in the seas of maritime Asia. Nowhere else in the world is a maritime region subject to a collection of sensitive marine areas or overlapping maritime jurisdictions subject to newly-defined governance regimes (under UNCLOS) that has generated intense maritime issues and conflict situations. The region encompasses the three largest archipelagic States in the world adjacent to each other wherein the regime of archipelagic waters (UNCLOS Part IV) and that for enclosed/semi-enclosed seas (UNCLOS Part IX) which overlaps and surrounds them, interconnect with each other. In this large marine area of territorial seas, exclusive economic zones and continental shelves (and possibly even contiguous zones) also overlap. In this humongous maritime context, a neat sorting out of coastal States' jurisdictional entitlements, rights and duties that at the same time address acute marine science concerns arising from the connectivity of the ocean, would be impossible. The region cries out for a sui-generis governance regime to be worked out cooperatively among regional States, possibly, as regional conventional international law. This is a situation that necessitates establishment of an “appropriate regional organization” suggested under UNCLOS Article 123, a concept that would seem to mirror Chapter VIII of the Charter of the United Nations where regional governance can be desirable where appropriate. An added competence that can be assigned to the proposed regional organization is to facilitate the development of a regional law of the sea suited to the regional marine geology and geography, and the impacts on geopolitics. In the eastern flank of the Asian continent that is the Pacific Ocean rampart is a north-south alignment of archipelagos consisting of Japan and the archipelagic States of Philippines, Indonesia and Papua-New Guinea. The three adjacent archipelagic States aforementioned are the largest in the world, governed under an UNCLOS regime (Part IV) that is insufficiently developed and requires further development in practice as customary international law, or be supplemented by conventional regional international law. This wide expanse of regional seas requires unified, coherent and coordinated, cooperative ocean governance as interconnected archipelagic waters within interconnected enclosed/semi-enclosed seas that demands a balancing of interests among regional countries and other interested States. In the regional seas of maritime Asia, the maritime heartland is the Philippines. It is the gateway for access to the South China Sea. Its archipelagic waters host the highest marine biodiversity in the world that covers a significant part of the Coral Triangle. The “think tank” scope for policy studies would therefore center in, and on the Philippines situation and concentrically radiate outwards. It would a priori address matters that impact on national concerns that, in its strategic location carry obvious political/geopolitical implications as an archipelagic State. Regional areas of coverage would include the regime of the archipelagic State waters (which would affect Indonesia and Papua-New Guinea), the regime of enclosed/semi-enclosed seas and, not the least, the hottest current issue, the situation in the South China Sea which is essentially a maritime/marine situation. The following are the more specifically defined subjects of interest to the “Think Tank”. •UNCLOS Part IV – Archipelagic States • Archipelagic Seas Transit Passage • UNCLOS Part IX – Enclosed or Semi-enclosed Seas, XII – Protection and Preservation of the Marine Environment and XIII – Marine Scientific Research • Annex VI - Resolution on development of national marine science technology and ocean service infrastructure |
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