Role and Influence of the North Sea Conferences

While the pertinent Conventions (OSPAR Convention, Marpol 73/78, London Dumping Convention, Bonn Convention) and their executive bodies are rather specialized in their scope, the International Conferences on the Protection of the North Sea have the advantage of providing a political framework for a broad and comprehensive assessment of the measures needed to protect the North Sea. This enables ministers to deal with a broad range of North Sea issues, and allows them to respond swiftly and to focus on key issues at each conference.

An important feature of the North Sea Conferences is that they constitute political fora which adopt far-reaching politically-based commitments, as opposed to the legally binding force of the decisions taken within the conventions. As a next step these political commitments have been adopted in the framework of legally binding conventions.

Apart from the agreements on action to protect the North Sea, the North Sea Conferences have also played an important role in influencing environmental management decisions in a much widercontext.

The adoption of the precautionary principle at the London Conference in 1987 is one of the important decisions emanating from the North Sea Conferences. Once agreed at a political level, the principle has been adopted within the appropriate legislative fora and has become a generally accepted principle for the protection of the environment.

The political forum provided by the North Sea Conferences has afforded a useful opportunity to keep North Sea policy up to date with trends in modern environmental concepts. For example, the Hague Declaration in 1990 accepted the implications of the concepts of sustained use and sustainable development, and the integrated ecosystem approach, as indicated by the World Commission on Environment and Development.