Zheng Fan: From the perspective of marine regional cooperation, the "Belt and Road" construction of maritime cooperation
Author: Fan Zheng, Associate Research Fellow, School of International Relations, Sichuan University/Collaborative Innovation Center for Frontier Security and Development in Western China
Source: Pacific Journal, Vol. 27, No. 8; Pacific Journal Pacific Journal
WeChat platform editor: Zhou Yue
From the perspective of marine regional cooperation, the "Belt and Road" construction of maritime cooperation
Zheng Fan
Abstract:Maritime regional cooperation has its own unique internal mechanism, and "maritime regionalism" is a generalization and analytical framework. Maritime regionalism encompasses the legal basis of regional cooperation in the global law of the sea and the specific regional ocean cooperation mechanism, and the interaction mechanism between the two can be summarized as follows: global regulations promote the establishment and development of regional ocean cooperation mechanisms, regional issues proposed by regional ocean cooperation mechanisms or regional measures will also promote the development of global laws and regulations; United Nations specialized agencies play a pivotal role in this set of interactions. Taking the "Belt and Road" Maritime Cooperation Concept as a clue, combined with the development mechanism and trend of marine regionalism, this paper puts forward suggestions for promoting maritime cooperation in the construction of the "Belt and Road" through maritime regional cooperation: first, consider ratifying the 1995 Fish Stocks Agreement and play its role as the legal basis for regional cooperation; second, attach importance to the pivotal role of united nations specialized agencies (especially the International Maritime Organization); and third, build regional cooperation in the South China Sea on the basis of semi-closed sea clauses The fourth is to participate in the regional maritime cooperation mechanism in the key direction of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.
Keywords: maritime regional cooperation; 21st century maritime silk road; cooperation mechanism
Excerpt from the main text
On June 20, 2017, the National Development and Reform Commission and the State Oceanic Administration issued the "Maritime Cooperation Concept for the Construction of the Belt and Road", which revealed that in the sea areas covered by the key directions of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, regional cooperation with countries along the "Belt and Road" is an intrinsic part of maritime cooperation under the framework of the "Belt and Road". Maritime regional cooperation has its own unique internal mechanism. In the 1970s, when the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (hereinafter referred to as the Convention) was still in the negotiation stage, the international academic community proposed the topic of "Marine Regionalism" to explore regional cooperation in the law of the sea, and the concerns gradually shifted from whether it was necessary to form provisions on regional issues in global conventions to explore the cooperation practices and experiences of various regions. This shows that in the more than 30 years since the adoption of the Convention, with the development of cooperation in maritime areas, the regional level has been embedded in the international legal order for the oceans. This paper will analyze the development trend of marine regionalism on the basis of clarifying its connotation and structure, and use this as a background to make suggestions on the legal path of promoting maritime cooperation in the construction of the "Belt and Road".
First, the two dimensions of maritime regionalism
In reviewing the development of inter-State economic and political regionalism, Louis Fawcett pointed out that Chapter VIII of the UnIntenduction, "Regional Arrangements", more indirectly provided a basis for the development of regionalism after the war. Compared with "land-based" economic and political regionalism, the outstanding feature of maritime regionalism is that the global law of the sea, with the Convention as the main body, clearly establishes the obligation of States to cooperate in maritime areas. More than 20 provisions in the body of the Convention contain different formulations of regional cooperation, establishing obligations in multiple functional areas for regional cooperation between littoral States or between littoral States and maritime user States, directly or through international organizations. Correspondingly, in addition to the integration of maritime policies in the "EU Sea" with supranational systems in the "EU Sea" on a global scale, other typical maritime regional cooperation revolves around specific functional areas. Accordingly, maritime regionalism can be defined as the process of institutionalized cooperation between littoral States (and in some cases, maritime domain users and relevant international organizations) in a specific maritime area around a specific functional area in accordance with their obligations to cooperate under the law of the sea, and the resulting cooperation mechanisms, norms and measures. Under this definition, maritime regionalism encompasses both the legal basis of regional cooperation in the global law of the sea and the specific regional ocean cooperation mechanism.
1.1 Framework provisions of the Convention for cooperation in marine areas
In a traditional law-of-the-sea order based on the principle of freedom of the seas and the exception of the 3-nautical-mile territorial sea, there is no particularity in maritime zones. Although the 1882 Convention on the Regulation of Fishing Activities in the North Sea and the 1911 Fur Seal Treaty deal with regional fishing issues, their legal basis remains freedom of the high seas. In the reform of the law of the sea after World War II, which was dominated by the expansion of the maritime areas under the jurisdiction of coastal States, the basic direction of the law of the sea into culture was also to formulate universally applicable global rules. However, it is precisely in this transformation that regional particularities and the need to develop special norms for them have been recognized by the global law of the sea, which is embodied in the formation of "closed or semi-closed seas" clauses in the Convention and the framework requiring States to carry out institutionalized regional cooperation in functional areas such as the conservation and management of marine living resources, marine environmental protection, marine scientific research and technology transfer.
From the perspective of legal history, there are two driving forces in the global convention on the law of the sea to make special provisions for the regional level. First, the increasing use of the oceans has highlighted the vulnerability of geographically specific marine environments and resources. In response to the torrey Canyon's crude oil spill, the 1973 Convention on the Prevention of Pollution from Ships created a global mandate for pollution from ship sources and recognized the specificities of specific sea areas under the "Special Area Regime". At the same time, the practice of regional cooperation between the States bordering the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas to combat pollution from the marine environment and conserve fishery resources has also had a direct impact on the general acceptance of regional particularities and regional cooperation obligations by States at the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. As Lewis M. Alexander commented: "In a world where regionalization is becoming an increasingly important political phenomenon, recognizing the special regional interests in the oceans is not only reasonable, but also the only viable way to ensure that a global agreement can be reached on the future ocean regime." "Second, the expansion of the sea area under national jurisdiction has changed the legal status of the sea area, which in turn has changed the original pattern of marine use." Particularly in narrow areas where coastal States cannot adequately assert the 200-nautical-mile limit, States with opposite coasts turn into neighbouring States with "maritime boundaries", often involving more than two States, and are prone to conflicts of maritime use and jurisdiction. For example, under the exclusive economic zone system, the demarcation of boundaries does not fully address the needs of conserving and managing transboundary and highly migratory populations, but rather creates a trend of competition. In this regard, "seeking to reach agreement on the necessary measures, either directly or through appropriate subregional or regional organizations" (article 63 of the Convention), has become a rational response. L.D. nelson, then secretary of the Drafting Committee of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea.M, analyzed the regionalism embodied in the Informal Consolidated Negotiating Text, noting that the significance of the regional cooperation clause was also to alleviate the contradictions arising from the expansion of maritime areas under the jurisdiction of coastal States. The logic of overcoming this set of contradictions through regional cooperation is most clearly reflected in the "regional exclusive economic zone" programme that emerged at the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. As scholars have observed economic and political regionalism, maritime regionalism is a reaction to the "nationalism" manifestation of the expansion of maritime areas under the jurisdiction of coastal States.
The above two sets of driving forces meet in the semi-closed sea. On the one hand, the particularity of semi-closed seas lies in the complexity of navigation conditions and vulnerability to pollution brought about by geographical conditions with a small area and a high degree of land closure; on the other hand, it is the difficulties that may arise from the application of the general provisions of the law of the sea, and whether it is necessary to formulate special exclusive economic zones for such sea areas and special navigation and delimitation rules was the main content of the negotiations. Part IX of the Convention, "Closed or semi-enclosed", eventually forms a relatively complete provision for cooperation in marine areas. Article 122 defines the area of cooperation by defining "closed or semi-enclosed sea". Article 123 defines the areas of cooperation and the institutionalized modalities of cooperation. Part IX of the Convention makes "closed or semi-closed seas" the legal-geographical basis for cooperation in marine areas, and the practice of cooperation in maritime areas has taken the lead in spreading in the semi-closed seas.
From the point of view of the legal status of maritime areas, semi-closed seas "consist wholly or mainly of the territorial seas and exclusive economic zones of two or more coastal States", but the provisions of the Convention on regional cooperation actually cross the seas and high seas under national jurisdiction in a functional path. The provisions of the Convention on regional cooperation in marine environmental protection (articles 197, 200, 207, 210, etc.) and regional cooperation in the development and transfer of marine science and technology (articles 268, 270, 272, 276, etc.) are not limited to the legal status of the sea area, while the provisions on regional cooperation in the conservation and management of marine living resources include two parts: the exclusive economic zone (articles 63 to 64) and the high seas (articles 118 to 119). Combining these provisions, the legal framework established by the Convention for cooperation in marine areas is as follows: (1) Demarcation of cooperation areas. Except where "closed or semi-enclosed" is clearly defined, the Convention's provisions on regional cooperation on the high seas make the high seas divisionable and no longer legally necessarily considered a whole. (2) Obligations of regional cooperation. The obligation to cooperate under the Convention is generally understood as an obligation to act, i.e. "to act in good faith in pursuit of a common goal, taking into account the needs of other states concerned". The conduct required by "shall co-operate" in articles 118, 197 and other articles of the Convention is to "negotiate in good faith" on a regional basis and "execute in good faith" after cooperation has been established. (3) Clarify the areas of cooperation. The obligation of regional cooperation under the Convention is not broad, but clearly points to the above three functional areas. The resulting path of functional regional cooperation has two more implications. First, although the Convention does not explicitly provide for regional cooperation in the field of maritime security, in practice regional cooperation in this field also follows the established functional path, such as regional anti-piracy cooperation formed by the "Obligation to cooperate in the suppression of piracy" in accordance with article 100 of the Convention. Second, functional cooperation to a large extent separates the use of the oceans from other political and economic issues, making marine regional cooperation relatively independent. (4) The openness of the main body of cooperation. First, the Convention describes the subject of cooperation as "littoral States" (article 123) and "States" (articles 197 and 276), so that all coastal States in the region are legal subjects participating in regional cooperation. Secondly, participation is further expanded "where appropriate", such as "invitation to other interested States or international organizations" in article 123 of the Convention, distant-water fishing States referred to in article 118, and "competent international organizations" referred to in article 276. (5) Institutionalization of cooperation. The semi-closed sea clause, as well as other regional cooperation provisions of the Convention, address cooperation "through" or "establishing" international organizations or arrangements. Taking into account the differences in international organizations or arrangements in practice, it can be summarized as regional cooperation mechanisms constituting the procedural carrier of cooperation in the seas, and the above framework is translated into concrete practice through regional cooperation mechanisms in the seas.
1.2 Mechanism design in the basic document on maritime area cooperation
Referring to Stephen D. Krasner's definition of an international mechanism, a regional maritime cooperation mechanism encompasses basic documents, regional international organizations or liaison platforms, and the principles, norms and measures agreed upon on regional platforms for specific functional areas. There are currently more than 20 regional marine environmental projects and about 50 regional fisheries organizations around the world, and differences are undoubtedly a significant feature of regional ocean cooperation mechanisms. However, through the basic document for the establishment of a regional cooperation mechanism for the seas (regional treaties or soft law documents in the form of "action plans", "declarations", etc.), the following elements of mechanism design are indispensable.
(1) Determine the functional area and membership. A "functional area" is a maritime area that faces common problems and is covered by an international treaty or arrangement. Economic and political regional cooperation "on land" actually delineates the geographical extent of the "area" by the participating countries, thus showing the characteristics of "welcoming countries and rejecting undesirable countries outside". With a few exceptions, regional ocean cooperation mechanisms delineate functional areas by geographical descriptions or coordinates, in which coastal States of the region can participate. In terms of membership in countries outside the region, different functional areas exhibit different characteristics. In the area of marine environmental protection, the membership of regional cooperation mechanisms is in principle limited to coastal States, while some mechanisms are open to States outside the region under the observer State system. In the case of the presence of the high seas in functional areas, the conservation and management of fishery resources is a priority area of participation of States outside the region (distant-water fishing States), but with a few exceptions, membership in regional cooperation mechanisms is in fact limited. Most RFMOs have imposed restrictions on the admission of new members, such as invitations from Parties and a history of catches in functional areas. At the same time, some RFMOs have applied the "cooperating non-Parties" system.
(2) Determine the functions of the mechanism. Article 277 of the Convention and article 10 of the 1995 Fish Stocks Agreement enumerate the functions of regional centres for marine scientific and technical research and regional fisheries management organizations, respectively, but they are more of a recommendation and a guiding role. In practice, regional ocean cooperation mechanisms show strong differences even if they belong to the same functional area. Combined with existing research, the functions of regional ocean cooperation mechanisms can be broadly divided into four types. First, marine scientific research functions. At present, in addition to independent regional marine scientific organizations, regional cooperation mechanisms in the field of marine environmental protection and the conservation and management of marine living resources have the function of initiating relevant marine scientific research projects and sharing scientific information. The second is to make recommendations and coordinate policy functions. Such management recommendations made by regional seas cooperation mechanisms based on scientific research are not mandatory and are intended to promote the coordination of relevant national policies. Regional fisheries organizations established under Article 6 of the Statute of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations fall into this category. The third is to formulate the function of common measures. Strictly speaking, regional treaties or common measures are binding only on members of the mechanism, but conservation and management measures developed by regional fisheries management organizations are also effective against non-member States by restricting access. It is also worth noting that the binding force of common measures depends not only on the clear provisions in the basic documents of the cooperation mechanism, but also on the integrity of the compliance system. For example, since the introduction in 1985 of the system requiring Parties to report on the implementation of the "recommendations" formulated by the Helsinki Committee established by the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area (also known as the Helsinki Convention), which was established by the Helsinki Committee in 1974, were not legally binding, and no Party had refused to implement those "recommendations", which had been unanimously adopted by all Parties, on the grounds that they were not legally binding. Fourth, information sharing and capacity building functions. Such mechanisms focus on maritime security functions, such as the 2004 Agreement on Cooperation in Combating Piracy and Armed Ships in the Asian Region and the 2009 Code of Conduct for the Suppression of Piracy and Armed Robbery in the Western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, which will be discussed below. Such regional maritime cooperation mechanisms are designed to enhance the capacity of member States to meet existing international law obligations, and in addition to setting out in the basic document the domestic measures that Member States can take, the elements of cooperation of the mechanism are the rapid transmission of event information through information-sharing centres and the provision of technical and capacity training to Member States.
(3) Establishment of institutional arrangements. Through the exemplary effects of the earlier regional oceans cooperation mechanisms and the promotion and guidance of the United Nations specialized agencies, which will be further discussed below, the current regional oceans cooperation mechanisms are converging in institutional arrangements, mainly consisting of three parts. The first is that the intergovernmental meeting, as the decision-making body, reviews the implementation of cooperation, approves new activities and the necessary budget. The second is a permanent establishment, that is, the establishment of a regional international organization or liaison platform as the secretariat, and the establishment of special committees according to the scope and type of functions. It is important to note that in the "Regional Seas Project" model launched by the United Nations Environment Programme, permanent institutions are decentralized. In addition to the Secretariat, the regional focal points located in member States are at the heart of the institutional arrangement and are responsible for facilitating the implementation of relevant protocols or cooperation projects. The third is the regional trust fund to support the functioning of the mechanism. Financial support from member States and sponsorships from other States or international organizations are usually remitted to trust funds administered by the Secretariat. In developing regions, sponsorship from developed countries outside the region and international organizations often constitutes the main source of the Fund.
Second, the development mechanism and trend of marine regionalism
As mentioned earlier, the rise of maritime regional cooperation is almost parallel to the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, while the Convention recognizes regional specificities and thus imposes obligations for regional cooperation, while also placing maritime regionalism in the context of globalism. After the adoption and entry into force of the Convention, the mechanism of interaction between the two dimensions of maritime regionalism became clearer. This set of interactions also provides clues to the development trend of marine regionalism.
2.1 The interaction mechanism of two levels in marine regionalism
In a nutshell, the development mechanism of marine regionalism is manifested in the following ways: global regulations promote the establishment and development of regional ocean cooperation mechanisms, and in another upward direction, regional issues proposed by regional ocean cooperation mechanisms or regional measures will also promote the development of global regulations; the United Nations specialized agencies play a pivotal role in this set of interactions.
The framework provisions of the global law of the sea for regional cooperation not only provide a basis for the legitimacy of practice, but also directly promote the establishment of regional ocean cooperation mechanisms and the renewal of the legal framework. Following the recognition of the particularity of the semi-enclosed seas by the Convention, regional cooperation mechanisms for marine environmental protection have been established either autonomously or autonomously or within the framework of the United Nations Environment Programme's Regional Seas Project, although the operation and effectiveness are uneven. Following the adoption of Agenda 21 at the Rio Conference on Environment and Development in 1992, many regional cooperation mechanisms for marine environmental protection revised their basic documents in accordance with the Integrated Management Approach proposed in Agenda 21, resulting in the so-called second-generation regional conventions or action plans. In the area of the conservation and management of living marine resources, the provisions of article 8, paragraphs 3 to 5, of the Fish Stocks Agreement, adopted in 1995 and entering into force in 2001, make access to regional fisheries management organizations (or at least comply with conservation and management measures established therein) a condition for fishing on the high seas and require that in high seas areas where a regional fisheries management organization is not established, "the coastal State concerned and the States fishing for this stock on the subregional or regional high seas shall cooperate in the establishment of such organizations or enter into other appropriate arrangements". This provision has directly contributed to the restructuring or establishment of some regional fisheries management organizations. Other global conventions have also contributed to the development of regional cooperation in corresponding functional areas, such as the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity and the 1995 Mediterranean Protocol on Specially Protected Areas and Biodiversity.
While global conventions recognize the role of the regional level in managing the use of oceans and seas, global legislation often provides only minimum standards or framework provisions, and may promote the development of global legislation in two forms when specific regional ocean cooperation mechanisms adopt higher standards or respond to new issues. First, countries in the region reach consensus through regional ocean cooperation mechanisms, and then collectively introduce issues into the global law-making platform dominated by the United Nations system, seeking to recognize their particularities by global laws and regulations. For example, in response to the emergence of a new problem in the prospect of commercial navigation in the Arctic Ocean, the Arctic Shipping Assessment Report issued by the Arctic Council's Working Group on the Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment in 2009 played a role in raising issues and promoting consensus in the process of formulating mandatory Polar Navigation Regulations of the International Maritime Organization. Subsequent Ministerial Declarations of the Arctic Council have taken "working with the International Maritime Organization to develop measures to reduce the environmental impact of shipping on Arctic waters" as a course of action. Second, regional measures can be transformed into global rules and standards. Some regional port State measures in the EU are examples of this form. Measures to ban single-hull tankers from entering the ports of EU countries in 2003 conflicted with global rules, but eu unilateral practice actually accelerated the revision of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships. Some scholars have commented that the difference between "regional unilateralism" and unilateralism of individual countries is only that the former has a larger scale and therefore has a greater impact.
In the interaction between the two dimensions of maritime regionalism mentioned above, the specialized agencies of the United Nations play a pivotal role in bridging the two dimensions. First, the United Nations specialized agencies such as the United Nations Environment Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Maritime Organization, the United Nations Educational And Cultural Organization (of which the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission is its subsidiary) and other United Nations specialized agencies are the "competent international organizations" (articles 197, 202, etc.) or "relevant international organizations" (article 123) addressed in the framework provisions of the Convention on cooperation in marine areas, and are one of the main participants in cooperation in the maritime area. In practice, these bodies have played a particularly important role in launching regional ocean cooperation mechanisms "from the top down". Whether or not they are established by United Nations specialized agencies is a visual way of classifying regional oceans cooperation mechanisms. UN Environment initiated and sponsored 13 regional cooperation mechanisms for marine environmental protection within the framework of the Regional Seas Project, and while the specific procedures for the establishment of regional seas projects were initiated at the invitation of countries in the region, UNEP played a pioneering role in surveying the status quo, drafting action plans, providing funding and supervising the implementation of the projects. Fao has established 11 regional fisheries organizations under Articles 6 or 14 of the FAO Statute. The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission has launched a series of regional marine scientific research projects. Moreover, financial, technical and administrative support from the specialized agencies of the United Nations provides the conditions for maritime regional cooperation in developing regions. These initiatives have directly contributed to the gradual roll-out of maritime regional cooperation around the world. In the 21st century, the International Maritime Organization has increasingly played this "top-down" role, coordinating and launching a number of regional maritime cooperation mechanisms in the functional areas of navigation safety and maritime safety in accordance with the provisions of the Convention on strait cooperation (article 43) and cooperation in the suppression of piracy (article 100).
Second, the specialized agencies of the United Nations are also the post-Convention platforms for the development of the law of the sea along a functional path, through which regional ocean cooperation mechanisms promote the development of global regulations "from the bottom up". The Polar Navigation Regulations are a prominent example of the direct pursuit of laws by regional maritime cooperation mechanisms. Regional seas cooperation mechanisms can also contribute more indirectly and progressively to the development of global legislation by raising issues on the platform of united Nations specialized agencies. For example, the topic "Elimination of illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing" was first raised at the 16th annual session of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources in 1997, after which the regional fisheries management organization systematically introduced the topic to the FAO Fisheries Department and the "FAO and non-FAO regional fisheries bodies or arrangements meetings". This initiated the process of fao-food and agriculture in developing the 2001 International Plan of Action to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing and subsequently to promote the 2009 Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing.
2.2 Development trend of marine regionalism
It is precisely because of the support of global conventions, regional maritime cooperation mechanisms and United Nations specialized agencies that the overall development of maritime regionalism is not "two steps forward and one step backward" like "land" regionalism. Many regional ocean cooperation mechanisms have withstood changes in the international landscape and tensions between member States. Proceeding from the above-mentioned regular interaction relationship, combined with the latest development of marine regionalism, the following research and judgment can be made on its development trend.
(1) Regionalism will become the main form of the development of the law of the sea
In the more than two decades since the entry into force of the Convention, the development of the law of the sea has been to address the unresolved issues of the Convention, such as the 2001 Convention on the Protection of The Underwater Cultural Heritage, which addresses the protection system of the underwater cultural heritage outside the contiguous zone that is not addressed by the Convention. The second is to address regional issues, and the framework of the relevant provisions of the Convention lays the foundation for this development. From the perspective of maritime regionalism, which has two dimensions, such developments include not only regional regulations developed on regional platforms applicable to member States, but also global conventions applicable to high seas areas such as the 1995 Fish Stocks Agreement, and global regulations that apply to specific regions but are binding on States, such as the Polar Navigation Regulations. When discussing the relationship between regionalism in the law of the sea and globalism embodied in global conventions, some scholars tend to pay attention only to the category of regional regulations; From the perspective of the interaction between the two levels of maritime regionalism, "systematization" may be a more appropriate description of the development of the law of the sea following regionalism than "fragmentation", that is, the formation of a framework global convention plus a system of regional regulations. The high seas protected area system is pioneered by regional ocean cooperation mechanisms such as the Commission for the Conservation of Marine Life in Antarctica and the Ministerial Conference of the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic, and the current entry into the global regulatory process is evidence of this trend.
(2) The role of the "top-down" of the United Nations specialized agencies has declined relatively
In the two areas of marine environmental protection and the conservation and management of living marine resources, the role of the United Nations specialized agencies in establishing regional marine cooperation mechanisms "from top to bottom" is obvious. As mentioned earlier, UN Environment and FAO have been working for decades to promote regional mechanisms for cooperation in the oceans. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the work of "filling the gaps" has come to an end, and the ocean has become an "ocean of regional composition". The work of UN Environment and FAO has shifted to promoting cooperation and exchange between regions and mechanisms through the establishment of communication platforms and networks. Since 1999, the FAO and Non-FAO Regional Fisheries Bodies or Arrangements Meetings have provided a platform for the exchange of experiences and information among regional fisheries organizations, which was renamed the "Network of Regional Fisheries Agencies Secretariats" in 2005. Since 1999, UN Environment has organized the Global Conference on Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans to coordinate the priorities and guiding principles of regional cooperation mechanisms for marine environmental protection within and outside the framework of the Regional Seas Project. In addition, while financial support was provided in the inception of the Regional Cooperation Mechanism on Seas, as it becomes operational, UN Environment and FAO hope that the Mechanism will be self-sustaining. The resulting effect is a shortage of funds for cooperation mechanisms in some developing regions. For example, since UN Environment gradually reduced its support for the East Asian Sea Project in 1994, lack of funding has become a major problem in the East Asian Seas Action Plan.
(3) The tension between "within the area" and "outside the area" is more prominent
In the development of maritime regionalism, the tension between "within the region" and "outside the region" has always existed. In the negotiations on semi-closed sea clauses at the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, the objection to the establishment of special provisions for the application of exclusive economic zones in such maritime areas, freedom of navigation, etc. was due to fears that specialization would lead to a new "mare clausum". Similarly, as can be seen from the negotiation process of the 1995 Fish Stocks Agreement, the same set of tensions is needed to strengthen the functions of RFMOs: how to balance the "special interests" asserted by coastal States in the region while treating fish stocks as an ecological unit and the right of distant-water fishing States to share biological resources and participate in conservation and management decision-making. The gradual implementation of Agenda 21 and the "integrated ecosystem-based pathway" for which the Convention on Biological Diversity provides the basis for legitimacy is another factor exacerbating this set of tensions. First, under ecosystem-based approaches to ocean management, the functions of regional ocean cooperation mechanisms will become more "integrated". The Bremen Declaration, adopted at the Ministerial Meeting of the Helsinki Committee in 2003, explicitly includes the "ecosystem approach" as a guiding principle. Since the ecosystem approach emphasizes the linkages between the marine environment and marine resources, the functions of the Helsinki Commission have expanded from the protection of the Baltic Sea environment to the conservation and management of fishery resources. While the functions of regional ocean cooperation mechanisms have been strengthened, identities have been spawned in the identification of regional norms by countries in the region. As Anne Christine Brusendorff, then Executive Secretary of the Helsinki Commission, commented on the development of the Helsinki Commission, the Helsinki Commission has become "the spokesperson of the Baltic Sea" thanks to its integrated policy-making functions. Second, concern for the ecological impacts of human activities is at the heart of the ecosystem approach, with littoral congresses in the region becoming more sensitive to the ecological impacts of other countries in the region. As a result, on the one hand, the Helsinki Commissioner seeks to implement stricter monitoring of maritime activities in countries outside the region for land-based pollution by relying on special action plans (rather than open membership) to expand the spatial scope of "river basins", and on the other hand, to seek stricter monitoring of maritime activities in countries outside the region for land-based pollution. Moreover, as the "Expert Group on Arctic Ecosystem-Based Management" established in the 2011 Declaration of The Minister of the Arctic Council, the "Expert Group on Ecosystem-Based Management", which was established in the 2011 Declaration of The Minister of the Arctic Council, pointed out that the ecosystem-based management approach is also "area-based management". Ecosystems as a whole have spatial properties, and marine protected areas as a tool therefore have a tendency to expand throughout the region. As mentioned above in the Arctic Shipping Assessment Report, one of the bases of its argument is that the entire Arctic Ocean is "of high ecological and cultural importance". Finally, for countries outside the region, the perception of the ocean as an ecological whole is not a substitute for the traditional perception of the ocean as a means of transport. Countries outside the region will be wary of the possibility of regional "ocean closure", and even if they are not bound by regional norms, the normative expectations of countries outside the region for the use of the oceans will change. Third, promote the construction of the "Belt and Road" maritime cooperation maritime regional cooperation with marine regional cooperation
It is an indispensable part of maritime cooperation in the construction of the "Belt and Road". First, the key directions of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road cover many clearly defined areas. In the three directions of "China-Indian Ocean-Africa-Mediterranean", "China-Oceania-South Pacific" and "Connecting Europe through the Arctic Ocean", more than 20 existing regional ocean cooperation mechanisms have defined corresponding "functional areas" in different functional areas. Many of the "cooperation priorities" in the "Belt and Road" Maritime Cooperation Concept, which explicitly regard regional cooperation as the way of co-construction, will be linked to these existing regions and their cooperation mechanisms, such as "promoting regional marine environmental protection", "actively participating in the survey and assessment of marine resources carried out by sea-related international organizations", "actively participating in the activities of relevant international organizations in the Arctic", and jointly building regional "marine science and technology cooperation platforms". In addition, there is also room for cooperation through regional maritime cooperation mechanisms in areas such as "joint maritime search and rescue" and "promoting maritime law enforcement cooperation". For example, in the area of joint maritime search and rescue, after the 1998 revision of the International Convention on Search and Rescue emphasized regional coordination in maritime search and rescue, the International Maritime Organization supported the establishment of regional maritime rescue coordination centres such as the West African Maritime Search and Rescue Region. Secondly, "maintaining the international maritime order" is the primary principle of maritime cooperation in the construction of the "Belt and Road", and maritime regionalism has a multifaceted impact on the international maritime order. Maritime regional cooperation is not only a tool for the international oceans order to address regional ocean governance issues: at the level of regional ocean cooperation mechanisms, maritime regional cooperation is a way to alleviate conflicts between the use of the oceans and jurisdictions; at the level of global regulations, maritime regional cooperation is one of the ways to promote the development of the law of the sea. In the context of the superposition of the construction of a maritime power and the joint construction of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, China is still facing the prominent problem of legal identity in the "region" and "outside the region" in the process of participating in or leading the establishment of regional maritime cooperation mechanisms, that is, how to smoothly participate in the existing regional maritime cooperation mechanism in the key directions of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road as a country outside the region, and how to deal with the openness of cooperation as a regional country in the region while strengthening the regional cooperation mechanism in the South China Sea. These issues are related to the preservation of the openness of the international maritime order itself. Combined with the interaction mechanism and development trend of the two levels of marine regionalism, this paper attempts to put forward the following suggestions for promoting maritime cooperation in the construction of the "Belt and Road".
1995
"Cooperation according to law" is the primary feature of maritime regional cooperation, so in the process of promoting maritime cooperation in the construction of the "Belt and Road", it is necessary to extensively explore the legal basis of regional cooperation in global conventions. As already discussed, the 1995 Fish Stocks Agreement is an important global legal basis for regional cooperation in the conservation and management of fishery resources on the high seas. My country signed the Agreement on 6 November 1996, but has not yet ratified it. Judging from the statements made at the time of signature, my country has a certain degree of reservations about the competence and procedures of non-flag State enforcement actions in the Agreement. In this regard, the procedures set out in articles 21 and 22 of the Fish Stocks Agreement are of a guiding nature and may be adapted and refined by rferie fisheries management organizations in the light of regional circumstances, when applicable. In the context of the "Belt and Road Construction Maritime Cooperation Concept" put forward the "promotion of maritime law enforcement cooperation under the bilateral and multilateral framework, the establishment and improvement of maritime joint law enforcement, fisheries law enforcement" and other cooperation ideas, China can take more active actions to deal with the law enforcement of non-flag States under the framework of regional fisheries management organizations, and promote the improvement of the non-flag State law enforcement procedures of specific regional fisheries management organizations.
In addition, it is recommended that ratification of the Fish Stocks Agreement be considered on the grounds that part VII, "Needs of developing countries", contains a legal basis for cooperation with developing countries "directly or through subregional, regional or global organizations". Around the conservation, management and development of straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks, article 25 of the Fish Stocks Agreement provides the legal basis for extensive cooperation with developing countries, including capacity upgrading, financial assistance, human resources development, technical assistance, information-sharing, stock assessment and scientific research. These areas of cooperation can form an organic connection with the cooperation priorities of "strengthening cooperation in the development and utilization of marine resources" and "improving the level of cooperation in the marine industry" in the "Belt and Road Construction Maritime Cooperation Concept", and are also in line with the principle of "promoting the eradication of poverty in developing countries and promoting the formation of a community of interests for maritime cooperation" upheld in the document.
3.2 The pivotal role of the United Nations specialized agencies is given in both upward directions
First of all, although the role of UN Environment and FAO in initiating regional ocean cooperation mechanisms "from top to bottom" has shown a relatively declining trend, the exchange platform and network it has built is an important platform for regional ocean cooperation mechanisms to raise new topics, and it is also an important platform for China as a country outside the region to understand the key directions of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.
Secondly, regional cooperation in marine scientific research could be established through the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. Compared with other United Nations specialized agencies, the "bottom-up" pivotal role of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission is not prominent. However, in accordance with article 247 of the Convention, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission is a qualified initiator of marine scientific research programmes and, in accordance with article 276 of the Convention, a participant in the establishment of regional centres for marine science and technology research. In the "Belt and Road Construction Maritime Cooperation Concept", "deepening marine scientific research and technical cooperation" is not only one of the "key points of cooperation", but also the basis for "strengthening cooperation in the marine field to cope with climate change" and "strengthening cooperation in the development and utilization of marine resources".
Finally, there is a need to focus on the two upward-looking pivotal roles of the International Maritime Organization. As a "bottom-up" legal platform for regional maritime cooperation mechanisms seeking to recognize their particularities, the IMO's process of creating new laws by way of amendment is less transparent or fully consulted than that of contracting platforms such as the United Nations General Assembly, especially the "default procedure" adopted by the polar navigation rules. As a Category A member of the International Maritime Organization, China needs to pay more active attention to the regionalist development of the law of the sea on the IMO platform. In terms of the role of the "top-down" regional maritime cooperation mechanism, the "Cooperation Mechanism for Navigation Safety and Environmental Protection in the Strait between Malacca and Singapore", which was established by the International Maritime Organization in 2006 on the legal basis of Article 43 of the Convention, deserves particular attention. In the understanding of the regime of "straits for international navigation", the regime of passage is often of concern, while the Mechanism for Cooperation on the Safety and Environmental Protection of Navigation in the Straits between Malacca and Singapore reveals that when there are two or more littoral States in the Straits, the regime of straits for international navigation actually contains framework provisions for cooperation in the maritime area: article 37 of the Convention defines the area of cooperation; States using straits and states bordering straits shall cooperate through agreements on: (a) the establishment and maintenance of the necessary navigational aids and safety equipment or other improvements in international navigation in the strait; Legally speaking, the mechanism is equally applicable to other straits around the world that are used for international navigation. For China's maritime cooperation in promoting the construction of the "Belt and Road", strait cooperation legally includes "countries using the strait and countries bordering the strait", thus resolving the legal identity issues of "within the region" and "outside the region".
3.3 Jointly build open regional cooperation in the South China Sea on the basis of semi-closed sea clauses
The South China Sea is the starting point and key sea area of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. At present, maritime regional cooperation in the South China Sea follows two paths. The first is sea-related cooperation under the framework of comprehensive economic regional cooperation. For example, the Meeting of Senior Officials of the APEC Committee on Economic and Technical Cooperation has a Working Group on Oceans and Fisheries as an official and regular agency for the protection of the marine environment and resources in the Asia-Pacific region. However, this arrangement has problems such as inefficient decision-making and difficulty in forming specific action projects with institutional and financial support. The second is functional regional cooperation around the use of specific oceans, including the Asia-Pacific Fisheries Commission established in 1948 under the framework of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and the East Asian Seas Project established under the "Regional Seas Project" of the United Nations Environment Programme in 1981, funded by the Global Environment Facility and implemented by the International Maritime Organization for the specific implementation of the "East Asian Sea Environmental Management Partnership Program". Such regional oceans cooperation mechanisms currently have problems such as unclear functional areas and overlapping mechanisms. For example, article 6 of the 1948 Agreement on Fisheries in Asia and the Pacific provides for a region of cooperation as "Asia-Pacific", without clearly defining this broad expression. The East Asian Seas Project and the East Asian Seas Environmental Management Partnership Program both feature the ill-defined "East Asian Sea" as the functional area and marine environmental protection as the functional area, but there is a lack of coordination between the two, and the East Asian Seas Project "New Strategic Directions of the East Asian Sea Coordination Agency (2008-2012)" points out that this has led to project overlap and waste of manpower and funds. The "Belt and Road" Construction Maritime Cooperation Concept discusses these two paths, starting from the characteristics and experience of the development of marine regionalism along the functional path, China can focus on the basic role of the semi-closed sea clause in the Convention in the process of jointly building and opening up regional cooperation in the South China Sea.
First, the area of cooperation can be clearly defined as the Semi-Closed Sea in the South China Sea. "The South China Sea is bordered by Chinese mainland and Taiwan Islands in the north, Kalimantan Islands and Sumatra Islands in the south, philippine archipelagos in the east, and Indochina Peninsula and Malay Peninsula in the west", "it is a northeast-southwest semi-closed sea". The South China Sea conforms to both the definition of a semi-enclosed sea in marine geography and the legal definition of "closed or semi-enclosed sea" in Article 122 of the Convention. As mentioned earlier, while defining functional areas in the spatial scope of the semi-enclosed sea, the cooperation mechanism guarantees the most basic openness: the littoral States in the region are all participants in cooperation, and countries or international organizations outside the region can participate in cooperation by "invitation". Taking the spatial scope of the semi-closed sea as the functional area, the cooperation is based on the natural characteristics of the semi-closed sea, and on the demand for cooperation generated by the natural characteristics. In conjunction with this, a "reservation clause" could be established in the basic document of the regional cooperation mechanism, affirming that the present document does not affect the rights or positions of Parties under the law of the sea. For example, article 3, paragraph 3, of the Barcelona Convention, as amended in 1995, provides that "nothing in this Convention and its Protocols shall prejudice the rights and positions of any State relating to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea". This would enable the cooperation area to have a relatively independent legal status and reduce entanglement with disputes over maritime areas under national jurisdiction.
Second, coordinating the regulatory policies of coastal States in the South China Sea coastal States regulating the use of the sea by their citizens and legal persons in the functional areas set out in Article 123 of the Convention and Article 6 of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea is a possible way to promote regional cooperation in the South China Sea. According to article 123 of the Convention, "coordination" is the primary form of cooperation between semi-closed sea-border States, and although the Convention does not explicitly provide for "coordination", in practice "making recommendations and coordinating policies" has become a functional type of regional ocean cooperation mechanism. At present, most of the cooperation mechanisms in the South China Sea use "policy coordination" as a way of working, but their effectiveness is limited. Drawing on the experience of other regional seas cooperation mechanisms of this functional type, the way to seek "coordination" is to translate global legislation into regional measures and standards and enhance the implementation capacity of the member States of the mechanism;
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As an "extra-regional" country, China is currently a member of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, the International Commission for Atlantic Tuna Conservation, the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization, the Central and Western Pacific Fisheries Commission and other regional fisheries management organizations in the key directions of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. The so-called "broad participation" is not only a spatial coverage of the key directions of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, but also a multi-level approach.
The first is to make full use of the observer system of regional oceans cooperation mechanisms. The observer system provides an institutional way for "extraregional" countries to articulate their concerns in a targeted manner. At present, China has focused on participating in the cooperation of the Arctic Council as an observer state, but it has not yet fully participated in other regional maritime cooperation mechanisms in the key directions of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. For example, the Mediterranean Sea is the westbound end of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, and the cooperation mechanism with the Mediterranean Sea as the functional area has established an observer system. The second is to sink into the internal institutional arrangements of the existing cooperation mechanism and specific cooperation projects. The 2009 Code of Conduct for the Suppression of Piracy and Armed Robbery in the Western Indian Ocean and gulf of Aden (djibouti Code of Conduct), an important maritime security cooperation mechanism in key directions of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, first details the actions that member states can take to combat piracy and armed robbery, and then focuses on communication, sharing relevant information and enhancing member states' ability to combat piracy. Although China carries out anti-piracy tasks in this region to escort merchant ships, and has extensive economic, trade and investment cooperation with countries in the region under the framework of the "Belt and Road", the degree of participation in the regional maritime cooperation mechanism is very limited. The Djibouti Code of Conduct was initiated by the International Maritime Organization, membership was open to coastal States in the region, and because of the administrative support provided by the International Maritime Organization, there was no special observer system, but in the process of cooperation, the actual participation of States outside the region was extensive. As a developing region, the Djibouti Code of Conduct Trust Fund is mainly sourced from countries outside the region, with Japan taking the lead, and Japan has also funded the construction of a "Djibouti Regional Training Centre". NATO and Turkey have provided major support for capacity training projects. In recent years, there has been a trend towards further expansion of the areas of cooperation in the regional oceans cooperation mechanism. The 2017 revision of the Djibouti Code of Conduct (also known as the Jeddah Amendment) emphasized the importance of the "blue economy", including shipping, fisheries and tourism, thereby integrating the fight against transnational organized crime at sea and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing into the functional areas of the Mechanism. The regional maritime cooperation mechanism is highly consistent with the principles and priorities of cooperation in the "Belt and Road Construction Maritime Cooperation Concept", and China may consider "sinking" in-depth participation through financial support, technical and capacity training, etc.
Think tank of the digital economy
Political Science and International Relations Forum
In order to better serve the construction of digital China, serve the construction of the "Belt and Road", and strengthen theoretical exchanges and practical exchanges in the process of digital economy construction. Experts and scholars from China's digital economy and the "Belt and Road" construction have established a digital economy think tank to contribute to the construction of digital China. Wei Jianguo, former vice minister of the Ministry of Commerce, served as honorary president, and well-known young scholars Huang Rihan and Chu Yin led the way. The Political Science and International Relations Forum is a dedicated platform under the umbrella of the Digital Economy Think Tank.