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The Ocean Governance Project

The Ocean Governance Project

The Ocean Governance Project analyses changes in the global oceans regime and its effects on Norwegian ocean policy. The project focuses on living marine resources in particular, but also address broader ocean policy issues.

A number of international agreements and processes constitute the global oceans regime, the centerpiece of which is the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention. During the last decade, this regime has been substantially strengthened, and a number of political processes have been initiated to further its implementation at regional as well as domestic levels.

Norway is one of the major beneficiaries of the recent developments in the global oceans regime. With an ocean area more than six times its landmass (2 million km2), abundant fisheries and petroleum resources, as well as Europe´s longest coastline, Norway is a globally significant actor in oceans policy. While policies and institutions for resource management are well developed within the different sectors, current efforts at policy development address cross-sectoral concerns and coordination among different types of uses of the oceans.

The Ocean Governance Project is funded by a grant from the Research Council of Norway for the period 2002-2007 and by the University of Tromsø. The project is run by the Department of Political Science, and also involves students who write their masters´ theses under the project. It is a part of the international Performance of Exclusive Zones (PPEZ) project under the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC) Programme.

The project proposal can be found here.