An Appraisal of the Institution of the Marine-Protected Areas in Terms of International Law Proposed at the World Parks Congress : Focusing on the Context until the 6th Congress of 2014

Abstract

The World Parks Congress sponsored by IUCN has been held once every ten years since 1962. Congress members discuss various ways to manage protected areas and create constructive solutions and outputs to transmit to other international conferences. Their discussions cover not only landscapes but also seascapes, areas that have long been recognized as natural assets vital to protect for the preservation of the marine environment and living resources. Biodiversity conservation has recently been incorporated as an agenda in the new protected areas through the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity and other environmental initiatives. This article will appraise products of each congress in terms of international law focused on the recommendations of marine-protected areas in the World Parks Congress. First, we review the idea of protected areas advocated by IUCN in terms of the contents of the recommendations and the protected areas classifications adopted by the congress. Second, we review various arguments concerning marine-protected areas on the high seas, mainly in the context of biodiversity conservation. Finally, we examine the prospects for securing the effectiveness of new legal management mechanisms in marine-protected areas put forward in the 6th World Parks Congress held in Sydney on November 2014.