Future of international marine environmental law and policy : concluding remarks

![CDATA[The oceans provide the fluidity of the Earth and maintain its ecosystem. Any detrimental impact on the oceans brings significant threat to the productivity of the oceans and marine environment. Protection of marine environment is the key issue to maintain the productivity of the oceans. However, the global marine environment is facing numerous threats, including unsustainable use of marine living resources, impacts of climate change, land-based marine pollution, pollution from ships, offshore hydrocarbon exploration and mining and other human activities in the oceans. Over-exploitation, for example, overfishing, is causing unsustainability in the oceans, and long-term losses in the biological productivity and the functioning of the oceans (Chapters 1 and 2). Moreover, the marine environment is being severely polluted by habitat loss due to conflicting human activities in the oceans, which is considered to be a high risk for the marine environment all over the world (Chapters 3 and 4). In addition, climate change is bringing overwhelming challenges to the marine ecosystems by an unprecedented increase of ocean warming, ocean acidification, coral bleaching, changes in species distribution and other biological changes (Chapters 1 and 6).]]