Lecture summary: International law still struggles with an understanding of an “international community” that has legally cognizable interests distinguishable from those of individual sovereign States. This international community is imagined variously as the collectivity of sovereign states, an abstract concept of all human beings, an international body or a nongovernmental organization tasked with representing humanity—or even the planet. The further these concepts move from traditional State sovereignty, the more fanciful they may seem, yet the participation of corporations in treaty-making, international litigation, and other fora of international law tells a different story: international law is not a “States only” activity. In this lecture, roles that the international community might assume in a treaty regime for conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity (BBNJ) are examined, which allows us to move from academic speculation to concrete scenario analysis. The starting premise is that BBNJ obligations will be owed to the international community as a whole, “erga omnes” obligations. They will not be bilateral, nor will they solely address narrow national interests.

Professor Cymie R. Payne is a member of the Rutgers University faculty, where she teaches international and environmental law. She has appeared as counsel before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in its deep seabed mining and fisheries advisory opinion cases and as expert on environmental reparations in the International Court of Justice case Certain Activities (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua). Currently, she is legal advisor to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) delegation to the intergovernmental conference for a legally binding agreement on conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) and Chair of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law - Ocean, Coasts and Coral Reefs Specialist Group. She participated, as counsel for the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), in reparations for environmental damage due to armed conflict and in the creation of a related environmental award oversight program to ensure that awards were used to restore the environmental harm. She is the editor, with Peter H. Sand, of Gulf War Reparations and the UN Compensation Commission: Environmental Liability (Oxford University Press 2011). She has also been a member of the Berkeley Law faculty and served as attorney with the U.S. Department of the Interior and the law firm of Goodwin, Procter. She holds a MA from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a JD from the University of California, Berkeley, and is a Fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers. She was a member of the International Law Association Committee on Sustainable Natural Resource Management For Development.