The notion of creating marine protected areas (MPAs) in the high seas has been hailed as "an idea whose time has come", and advocates are calling for them to be part of a global representative system to be established by 2012. It is argued in this paper that embedding the high seas MPA concept in the macro-goal of a global representative system subsumes more pragmatic and politically acceptable "micro-actions". Development of politically contentious policy proposals such as high seas MPAs may have a better chance of success if they proceed by increments and are negotiated outside the limelight of a full scale, temporally defined global project. The following paper critically analyses the salience of international environmental agreements in the context of high seas MPAs and suggests a prototype MPA established by means of a negotiated agreement between a small number of countries which share political will and technological capacity to make a difference. Modelled on the recently implemented Titanic Accord, the prototypical high seas MPA would allow parties to develop a collaborative, rules-based regime which could be used to manage the actions of citizens involved in activities that may have a negative impact on the specified area. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Studies in Human Society
Research Group:	Political Science
Research Field:	Political Science not elsewhere classified
Objective Division:	Environment
Objective Group:	Remnant Vegetation and Protected Conservation Areas
Objective Field:	Protected Conservation Areas in Marine Environments
Author:	Hislop, CF (Dr Cheryle Hislop)
ID Code:	51230
Year Published:	2007
Deposited By:	Government
Deposited On:	2007-08-01
Last Modified:	2008-05-19
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