Global obligations and agreements
The policy for the North Sea is strongly influenced by international obligations, deals and partnership agreements. The over-arching themes in the policy are spatial planning, achieving and maintaining good environmental status and care for a proper balance between functions and use, on the one hand, and carrying capacity of the North Sea on the other.
The over-arching legal basis for this is the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) for the use of seas and oceans.
In addition, at global level, the most important obligations and partnerships are based on the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. The Valletta Treaty was concluded to protect historical cultural heritage.
The Bonn Convention focuses on protecting migratory wild animal species that also occur in a country's own sea area.
Finally, the Ramsar Convention protects unique sites around the world in shallow water (wetlands, less than 6 metres deep), and in practice primarily relates to the territorial sea.
Shipping
In relation to the effects of shipping on the marine environment, the London Convention and the subsequent London Dumping Protocol (1996) are also important. These instruments impose global restrictions on the dumping and burning of waste products at sea.
The Netherlands is a co-signatory to the OSPAR Convention. In this context, agreements are made on the monitoring of substances, assessment of the condition of the sea, regulation of off-shore activities (including primarily discharges), reduction of phosphates and heavy metals, protection of habitats and species, and the approach to marine litter.
The specific field of marine navigation is one in which important agreements have also been made within the International Maritime Organization (IMO). These agreements relate in part to the regulation and routing of shipping. In addition, the SOLAS Convention covers the safety and security requirements to which ocean-going vessels must adhere. The MARPOL Convention governs pollution by shipping (including oil pollution and the use of anti-fouling paint). In conjunction with this, the international INTERVENTION 1969 Convention and the accompanying protocol gives coastal states the tools to tackle the threat of pollution or other damage in their own marine waters.
The Ballast Water Management Convention is intended to prevent the spread of 'harmful aquatic organisms' from one region to another via the ballast water of vessels. The Nairobi Convention obliges coastal states to take measures (including clean-up) against shipwrecks in their EEZ that could pose a hazard.