International Instruments Addressing Marine Biodiversity Protection In South-East Asia

Marine biodiversity is crucial not only for maintaining livelihoods of millions of people worldwide,but also in the global pursuits of sustainable development.Over past several decades,international community has conceived numerous international treaties,policies and action plans in order to mitigate rapid biodiversity loss.South-East Asia is one of the most biodiversity rich areas in the world.This area is however threatened by numerous human-induced causes,with overfishing being one of the most significant ones.In this thesis three different frameworks of governance are examined-hard law,soft law,and implementation framework.Hard law framework consists of internationally binding treaties,soft law framework includes international non-binding policy documents and action plains,and the implementation framework is a cross-section of the promises made under international law(hard law)and the ideas of biodiversity protection taken from the soft law framework,which together co-create and enable the actual implementation of the conservation measures in the form of marine protected areas by national states together with the support of the non-governmental sector.All three discussed frameworks are inseparable and mutually support each other in the goal of marine biodiversity conservation,but up-to-date research mostly examines influences of each framework separately.This thesis examines the interactions of all three frameworks in a holistic manner as an interconnected system and shows the vastly important role of the non-state players on the application of global environmental laws and policies in the context of SE Asian region.