Offshore marine living and non-living resources straddling disputed areas of maritime boundary claims have been known to lead to establishment of joint development zones by the disputing states with a view to resolving such disputes in line with the provisions of Article 74 (3) of United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea III. Subsequently, the issue of straddling or highly migratory fish stocks led to the enactment of the 1995 United Nations Agreement for the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Stocks upon realisation of the failure of United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) III to address it.However, practical implementation of The Agreement revealed a number of challenges that appeared to impede its success across various international regimes. These had detrimental consequences for the sustainable management of marine living resources. A new innovative approach is presented here for the resolution of the issues associated with migratory fishery stocks under a shared management arrangement.It is proposed to legitimately encroach upon each of the two nations state Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) such that potential issues of jurisdiction will be more effectively addressed. This will help strengthen the institutional relationships and cooperation between the two nations institutions in line with the principles and objectives of UNCLOS III and Chapter 17, Agenda 21 respectively. The approach is expected to prove useful to other similar management arrangements.IntroductionThe concept and practice of managing marine resources management emerged greatly from the beginning of the 14th century based on the realisation of the need to apportion control over the ocean resources. This was followed by the desire to integrate various emerging activities such as fishing, navigation, dumping, mining and military uses while maintaining the health of the ocean for the common benefits of mankind. As various uses of the ocean emerged along with their associated conflicts, the need to appropriately manage the ocean resources and apportion control or designate ocean property rights by adjacent coastal nation States became stronger bringing alongside multiple challenges and disagreements with the advent of industrialisation between the 17th and 18th centuries.The challenges brought about by the commencement of industrialisation and subsequent introduction of steam power during the latter part of the 19th century which strengthened nation states ability to exploit the oceans led to the first United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1958. This was convened primarily to manage the conflicting sea uses and ocean resources. It was also believed that the conference was as a result of apportioning control for warfare at sea and that negotiations for some control over the sea and its resources predated even the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.While the emergence of UNCLOS has brought about some rationality into the issue of marine environmental resources apportionment within the global oceans lately, there is however some concerns because of the nature of seamless flow of both seawater and its living resources contained therein. This is because these resources do not respect boundaries or any lines drawn in the sea for the purposes of demarcation or ascertaining control. As such, living resources of the oceans faced significant threats to their management as a result of their transboundary nature. More so, marine environmental resources are known to be in constant movement across boundaries thereby making them fluctuate from one water body to another thereby requiring transboundary management initiative in managing them.Consequently, the transboundary nature of these marine living resources posed some threats to the stability of UNCLOS itself. This is because of the issue of declining fish stocks due to overfishing and resource sharing being observed by competing adjacent states as a result of the continuous movements of resources. This brought to the fore the need to enact specific rules in order to govern such movements of fish stocks and to ultimately strengthen UNCLOS.The result was the 1995 Agreement on straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks which was designed and adopted by coastal States in order to implement the principles of management inherent in the UNCLOS pertaining to these kinds of stocks. Among the most important or key issues of the agreement was the delegation of authority to manage such stocks in Regional Fisheries Organisations (RFO) of coastal states.The agreement became necessary as a result of the ambiguity, unpredictability and the absence of explicit implementation instruments in the provisions of Article 63 of the 1982 UNCLOS which covered the issues of obligation by the coastal states regarding the rights of high seas fishing concerns on straddling and highly migratory stocks. These uncertainties led to over-exploitation reminiscent of the open-access or common pool resource era; as such the need for the agreement to respond to the various issues and conflicts relating to the highly migratory and straddling fish stocks of areas under national jurisdiction and even the high seas.Following the delineation of ocean spaces and the advent of technology, the ocean space came to be characterised by conflicting pressures due to activities such as shipping, dredging, mineral extraction, fishing, offshore wind energy. These developments consequently prompted the need to comply with various national and international commitments to biodiversity conservation. It also brought about the need for sea use planning so as to balance the opposing demands on the oceans and its resources without compromising its ecosystems health.Although UNCLOS is the unified framework for managing all of marine resources of areas under national jurisdiction and the high seas by apportioning the global oceans into various units and placed same under coastal states jurisdictions in form of EEZ and the International Seabed Authority respectively, interactions however between these resources (both living and non-living) may not necessarily be easily regulated due to conflicting and competing demands and uses.This is because seabed minerals such as hydrocarbons, manganese nodules and gold may be very profitable to explore and their exploration most often come with its attendant consequences in the form of pollution and other alterations to the detriment of the other marine living resources. These include fish and fishery resources which are transboundary in nature.Transboundary marine resources by their nature do not respect boundaries and are usually in a state of constant and often unpredictable movements whether living (over space and time) or non-living (over geological timescales).This is unarguably one of the reasons why early divisions of the oceans and subsequent adoption of a unified framework for managing its resources (such as UNCLOS) were convened in the first place and their deliberations accepted by parties as a solution for managing these resources.Managing these resources therefore became of paramount importance for obtaining requisite benefit and also the sustainability of the ocean environment itself. This is more so for shared resources under a joint development arrangement such as in the Nigeria-Sao Tome & Principe Joint Development Zone (JDZ).The key lessons obtained from a research conducted for the Nigeria-Sao Tome & Principe JDZ was classified under five main themes, namely; the JDZ management regime in existence, legitimate practitioners responsible for the regime, existence of a licencing or a quota system and contributions to ensure JDZ fisheries sustainability.The JDZ management regime in existenceResults from the analysed data obtained indicated that the JDZ fisheries management regime is still in the process of being established and as such no fishery management regime exists currently for the JDZ. But, it is envisaged to be a licencing regime and/or joint venture partnership when it commences. This was also attested to by a key stakeholder during the interview when it was mentioned that the regime is yet to be established as they are in the process of establishing one. Another key stakeholder equally deplored the JDAs inability to develop the fishery after over a decade of the JDZ operations because all their energies have been dedicated to and geared towards the development of oil and gas. There has been observed however, a concentration of renewed attention currently being paid towards developing the fishery resources.Legitimate practitioners responsible for the regimeResults from the JDA participants revealed that almost all the respondents are of the view that the JDA should be the only legitimate practitioner responsible for the JDZ fisheries regime when it comes into existence. A few included some international organisations such as the FAO and the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research in addition to the JDA. This rather selfish standpoint confirmed other stakeholders perception of neglect in the overall management of the JDZ resources as revealed by almost all the stakeholders. It further indicated a conjecture as opposed to consensual proposition based on stakeholders relevance in line with principles and requirements of marine indicated-based assessments and management.
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