Invitation to the inaugural sessions of the Blue Justice Webinar series

The Blue Justice webinar series aims to establish a scientific forum to present and debate disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives and empirical case studies regarding equity at sea. Scholars from a wide range of perspectives in the social sciences are invited to present work ranging from the review or development of conceptual work to applied research, in short (maximum 25mn) presentations, that are followed by a moderated discussion, the total duration of each webinar being limited to 1 hour.

As a provider of energy, goods and services, and a vector for trade, the ocean is already an essential component of global economic development, and this is expected to increase in the coming decades. This growth of the so-called "blue economy" is associated with the generation of wealth and employment, and changes in ways of life for coastal and maritime people and communities. It also comes with multiple claims on the ocean for food, material and space, and with a growing human footprint and degradation regarding the functioning of marine ecosystems and the contributions to people they support. The ocean is mainly seen as a commodity in the perspective of the "blue economy", underlining developments since the enlightenment that consider human beings and the (marine) environment as separate entities. These developments raise the questions of how we want to shape or change our human-ocean relations in times of socio-ecological crisis, and address issues of access regulations and liability, as part of policies designed to ensure the sustainability of the blue economy, within and across multiple sectors. A key question in thinking about such regulations is that of equity considerations, and how these can affect the capacity for long-term collective management arrangements and the ocean as common good to be sustained. There is a long research tradition on these questions in the social sciences, which can help inform current debates on how such considerations can best be addressed.

Program:
#1 - March 14, 2023 - 2:00PM (France)

With Dale Squires, Program Lead, Economics and Social Science, NOAA :
"Sharing the benefits from the global commons: deep-seabed mining."

Benefits from the global commons, including from vaccines and deep-seabed, celestial, fishing, genetics, atmospheric, and polar resources, require sharing, but how? Benefits distributed through international organizations require distributive justice to achieve the requisite multilateral cooperation. We define and quantify local distributive justice for deep-seabed mining royalty distribution rules incorporating fairness, equity principles, and 'Equality of What' through equality of outcome and opportunity, with implications for global collective action through international organizations. We implement the Common Heritage of Mankind, an ethical concept and international law principle, for global collective action with transnational public goods and common resources in areas beyond national jurisdiction collectively owned by humanity.

#2 - March 15, 2023 - 2:00PM (France):

With Dale Squires, NOAA :
"Ethical Preferences for Global Collective Action: Evidence from the United Nations."

Treaty-based international organizations conduct much of the collective action managing the global commons of transnational public goods and common resources. International treaties and organizations require ethical preferences for inequality aversion for equitable policy and treaty design and impacts. International law requires State, not individual, ethical preferences for equitable global collective action through these treaties and organizations. State revealed ethical preferences establish focal points for negotiated stated preferences. Estimated revealed ethical preferences for relative inequality aversion from the United Nations regular budget scale of assessments, given by the elasticity of social marginal utility of consumption, show fair bargain and global commons' additive logarithmic social welfare function.

Funding: The webinar is sponsored by the AMURE joint research unit in Brest, Kiel Marine Science and the OMER Research Network.