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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Affairs and Policy
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1556856
Re-evaluating Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas as an Area-based Management Tool: Advancing the Implementation of the BBNJ Agreement
Provisionally accepted- 1Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China
- 2Korea Maritime and Ocean University, Yeongdo District, Republic of Korea
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As a sectoral Area-Based Management Tool (ABMT) under the IMO regulatory framework, Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas (PSSAs) play a crucial role in preventing pollution from vessels.PSSAs allow coastal states to adopt Associated Protective Measures (APMs), including navigational restrictions and discharge controls, enabling more flexible and adaptive regulatory measures to prevent vessel-source marine pollution. The designation criteria and discharge control requirements for Special Areas under MARPOL73/78 are generally more stringent than those for PSSAs, particularly in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ). This study analyzes the applicability and implementation of PSSAs as an ABMT within the framework of the BBNJ Agreement. It specifically addresses vesselsource marine pollution, a significant threat to marine ecosystems in ABNJ, and emphasizes the need for PSSAs as a legal tool to effectively prevent and mitigate this pollution. As a result, the study explores whether PSSAs can be adopted or applied as ABMTs under the BBNJ Agreement and presents improvement measures to enhance their effective implementation.
Keywords: Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas (PSSAs), Area-based management tools (ABMTs), BBNJ Agreement, Vessel-source marine pollution, International Maritime
Received: 07 Jan 2025; Accepted: 07 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Choi and Lim. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Junghwan Choi, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China
Sangseop Lim, Korea Maritime and Ocean University, Yeongdo District, 606-791, Republic of Korea
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.