Over eighty per cent of the world s trade involves transit via the ocean. For the oceans can no longer be considered as existing in isolation from the land. Technology in the hands of the few laid open the riches of the seas to the exploitation of dominant countries. The right of innocent passage is queried by several states when this involves nuclear-powered ships or ships carrying nuclear or other inherently dangerous or noxious substances. The FAO, the IMO, the IOC, and the International Seabed Authority have provided a framework that has given the United Nations a determining role in ocean governance but we have not as yet created a global agency or institution for taking decisions at the global level in questions affecting the marine environment.
Climate change is linked to the ocean processes.
This is the first Arvid Pardo Memorial Lecture. It is perhaps an act of historical justice that in Fiji at the Pacem in Maribus Conference, the first to be held since the death of Pardo, Malta s President should have been given the privilege to deliver this lecture. We present here are all, to a greater or lesser extent, disciples of Arvid Pardo. Pardo revolutionised the thinking of politicians, jurists, and scientists alike when he proclaimed that the seabed and the ocean floor are a common heritage of mankind, and should be used and exploited for peaceful purposes and for the exclusive benefit of mankind as a whole. The language of diplomacy was used by Pardo in his logic of persuasion.