The Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction – or BBNJ – came into force in January 2026, after two decades of international negotiations. Immediately after the text was finalized in March 2023, 145 countries signed the document that came to be known as the High Seas Treaty, including Brazil.

To come into effect, the accord needed ratification by at least 60 countries to become valid 120 days later. In Brazil, Congress approved the pact on December 16, 2025, but even before that, in September, 60 other countries had already confirmed their adherence.

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As of the publication of this story, 84 countries had ratified the agreement, according to the global network of social organizations High Seas Alliance. But why does this international treaty on a common good outside the territories of countries arouse so much interest?

Ana Paula Prates, director of the Department of Ocean and Coastal Management at Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, says that although other international treaties establish rules for marine biodiversity conservation, they mainly cover national territories, while this is the first to comprehensively address international waters, which represent two-thirds of the planet’s oceans.

“This integrated approach was necessary because everything that happens in international waters also affects our jurisdictional waters – whether it’s biopiracy, the environmental impacts of enterprises such as deep-sea trawling, or even plastic,” she pointed out.

Living beings

With a total area of over 360 million km² and depths exceeding 10 km, the oceans play a key role in balancing the planet’s temperature. They produce more than half of the oxygen necessary for life and are home to a vast biodiversity. Approximately 64 percent of this enormous expanse comprises the high seas, beyond national jurisdictions.

“By getting to know it better and conducting environmental impact studies of human activities in this area, we have the possibility of improving the protection and conservation of this biodiversity, which is by far the most important for the maintenance of life on earth,” says Andrei Polejack, director of research and innovation at the National Institute for Oceanic Research (INPO), a social organization dedicated to ocean research and development.

The text of the High Seas Treaty deals with guidelines and global governance for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in the high seas. It is based on four pillars:

• the creation of marine protected areas in international waters;
• assessment of economic activities in terms of environmental impact;
• the sharing of benefits from genetic resources; and
• technology transfer and capacity building.

In practice, any activity carried out on the high seas will be subject to the rules of the agreement, as the treaty is binding, thus becoming a legal obligation imposed on participating countries. “It will not be up to each country, each company, or their respective countries [to decide]. For example, deep-sea trawling – which is something that happens too often and no one knows where – will now have to be assessed jointly with these countries [that have joined the treaty],” Ana Paula Prates states.

To operate in these regions, the nations will also need to better understand the biodiversity on the high seas, through investments in science and technology such as deep-sea submersibles and genetic mapping of the fauna and the flora there.

Benefits

“We have a wonderful opportunity to find new resources for medicines, cosmetics, and other solutions. But this will have to be evaluated jointly, and the benefits will have to be shared among all ratifying countries. Similarly, another controversial issue that will have to be negotiated is the establishment of marine protected areas,” the representative of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment said.

The idea is that when there is doubt about the capacity to conserve and maintain the balance of a given ecosystem and the species in it, the region should be protected, with measures ranging from assessing the impacts of human activities to be carried out in the area to the creation of marine protected areas.

“This is a process that adopts some principles of international law, which are binding in this treaty – like the precautionary approach, which states that if we do not know exactly what the impact will be, then it is better to suspend activities,” Polejack noted.

High Seas COP

With the treaty now in force, only countries that have ratified it will be able to participate in the establishment of the institutions, operational rules, and processes necessary for the agreement to become operational. The first talks for the creation of these instruments are expected to take place at the Conferences of the Parties (COP) to the High Seas Treaty.

Even before this stage, when the agreement was signed by the countries interested in participating, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) set up a preparatory commission tasked with choosing a country to host the secretariat and other institutions – such as the scientific and technical body – as well as establishing the financial structure and rules for decision-making.

Two meetings were held in April and August 2025, and a third is scheduled to take place in March 2026 at the United Nations headquarters in New York. “At this [meeting], we will be able to decide where the secretariat will be located – which is already under dispute. Belgium has come forward, as have Chile and now China. All three are candidates. We should also set the date for the first COP,” Ana Paula Prates said.

Advantages

Still according to Polejack’s assessment, Brazil has much to contribute with all the diplomatic and scientific knowledge developed in other international treaties – such as those created at ECO92 in Rio de Janeiro, which deal with climate, biodiversity, and desertification. He also considers it important to hold debates on the social and collective interests of the people.

“This work must be based on scientific evidence and must consider the balance between the uses of this biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction, on the high seas, but it must also distribute the benefits generated. So, there’s a huge number of details. It’s a complex agreement, and it really needs all voices together,” he concluded.

It was a Friday. Nayara Porto, then 27 years old, was preparing a pudding for the weekend, her husband Everton Lopes Ferreira’s favorite dessert. After putting it in the oven, she overheard her neighbor talking to an aunt about the “Vale dam” that had ruptured, she recalls. They were referring to the tailings dam at the Córrego do Feijão mine in Brumadinho, in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais state.

“I was a little confused. Then she called me and asked if my husband was home. I said he wasn’t; he was working. After that, she told me what had happened,” recalls Nayara in an interview with journalist Mara Régia on the program Natureza Viva, on Rádio Nacional, a station of Empresa Brasil de Comunicação (EBC). “Then it was total despair,” Nayara remembers.

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• Hearings over dam collapse in Brumadinho scheduled in Munich.
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“I started trying to talk to him several times, but the phone wouldn’t even ring. Then I tried talking to some of his friends whom I knew were there, until I managed to reach one who had escaped the [tailings] mud, saved by a miracle of God. He said to me: ‘Oh Nayara, pray, ask God.’ The warehouse where my husband worked - the storeroom - was gone; there was nothing left.”

2,557 days

The accident, or “tragedy-crime” as classified by the Association of Families of Victims and Those Affected by the Collapse of the Córrego do Feijão Mine Dam (AVABRUM), occurred around 12:30 p.m. on January 25, 2019, killing 272 people. More than 2,500 days after the tragedy, no one has been held criminally responsible.

More than seven years after the event, the possibility emerges that 15 people could be held accountable in court for the accident. Preliminary hearings are scheduled to begin on February 23 in the 2nd Federal Criminal Court of the Belo Horizonte Judicial Subsection. Individuals who survived the disaster, witnesses, and defendants will be heard until May 2027.

At the end of the extensive hearing period, Federal Judge Raquel Vasconcelos Alves de Lima may decide to take the case to a jury trial. Fifteen people could face criminal charges: eleven former directors, managers, and engineers of Vale, privatized in 1997, and four employees of TÜV SÜD, a multinational company with German capital contracted to monitor and certify the dam that collapsed.

According to journalist Cristina Serra, author of the book Tragedy in Mariana: The Story of Brazil's Biggest Environmental Disaster (Record publishing house), the Brumadinho case can be associated with other serious accidents with significant environmental consequences. These include the collapse of the Mariana dam, also in Minas Gerais, in November 2015, controlled by Samarco Mineração S.A. (a subsidiary of Vale S.A. and BHP Billiton), and the ground subsidence in Maceió, Alagoas, in February 2018, caused by the exploitation of rock salt mines by the Brazilian company Braskem. In all three cases, no one has been held criminally responsible to date.

Also interviewed on the program Natureza Viva, Cristina Serra recalls that there are three incidents related to mining companies, and that they “operate with great irresponsibility, without taking into account essential aspects of safety.” She adds that the companies “don’t invest as much in operational safety as they should, because, of course, they always want to increase their profit margin.”

The journalist also points out “another aspect of this story” that contributes to these types of disasters: public oversight bodies – “both state and federal agencies” - do not actually fulfill their role.

“They don’t go on-site to see what’s happening. Both the oversight and licensing processes are bureaucratic, relying heavily on paperwork - documents that companies submit and that oversight bodies simply accept as if the information were correct,” adds Serra.

The other side

Contacted by Agência Brasil, Vale said it does not comment on the lawsuit currently in court, but highlighted the reparation actions underway in the region. The company emphasizes that it is “making progress in repairing the impacts of the Brumadinho dam collapse, with 81 percent of the Judicial Agreement for Full Reparation economically executed by December 2025, and with investments that go beyond compensation.” These actions include socio-environmental recovery, ensuring water supply, and initiatives for economic diversification in the region. Vale also states that, in parallel, it is investing in the safety of its dams.

Samarco, the company responsible for the dam that collapsed in Mariana in 2015, issued a statement reaffirming its solidarity with the affected people, communities, and territories. Following the signing of the New Rio Doce Agreement in 2024, Samarco assumed direct responsibility for carrying out reparation and compensation measures. The company states that it continues to fully comply with the agreement and remains committed to achieving definitive reparation.

According to Samarco, “thousands of people have been compensated, new districts have been built and delivered to communities, and significant environmental recovery actions continue in the states of Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo,” the statement reads.

TÜV SÜD, the German holding company whose Brazilian branch was contracted to assess the dam, says in a statement that the Brumadinho dam collapse “was a great tragedy, and we express our solidarity with the victims and their families.” However, the company adds that it has no legal responsibility for the dam breach.

The company maintains that the issuance of the stability declarations was legitimate, complied with applicable legislation and technical standards, and that the dam was stable at the time the declarations were issued.

 

The Munich District Court in Germany has scheduled three hearings in the lawsuit filed by 1,400 victims of the collapse of Vale’s dam in Brumadinho, in Minas Gerais state. The purpose of the lawsuit is to establish the liability of TÜV SÜD AG, which is headquartered in the city. The hearings are scheduled for May 26 and 28.

On the initiative of residents of the municipalities of Brumadinho and Mário Campos, the lawsuit seeks civil liability from the company as well as compensation estimated at BRL 3.2 billion.

Notícias relacionadas:

• Brumadinho dam collapse: 23 thousand compensation deals inked.

The victims are represented by the law firm Pogust Goodhead, which also defended the rights of victims of the 2015 collapse of Samarco’s Fundão dam in Mariana, also in Minas Gerais, seeking compensation from the shareholder, the Anglo-Australian mining company BHP.

TÜV SÜD AG is the company called upon to respond for controlling Tüv Süd Bureau de Projetos e Consultoria LTDA, its subsidiary in Brazil hired to assess whether the structure was compromised and posed any risk.

When contacted by Agência Brasil, TÜV SÜD AG maintained that it “has no legal responsibility for the dam collapse” and that an inspection carried out by authorities in November 2018, three months before the socio-environmental crime, confirmed the soundness of the structure, as attested in a report.

“The issuance of stability statements by TÜV SÜD Bureau was legitimate and in accordance with applicable legislation and technical standards. The dam was stable at the time of the stability statements,” the German holding company argued.

The victims claim that the Córrego do Feijão mine dam was in poor condition, falling well below international standards. A total of 272 people died in the tragedy.

Crime

In the view of the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB), the case should be remembered as a crime, not as an inevitable tragedy or disaster. Movement members claim there was deliberate negligence on the part of the mining company Vale and the German certifier.

In Brazil, only now – seven years after the dam collapse – will a federal criminal court of Belo Horizonte, capital of Minas Gerais, begin preliminary hearings, on February 23. The first phase of the process will determine whether the defendants will go to trial by jury. The testimony of victims, witnesses, and defendants should continue until May 2027.

As it stands today, 15 individuals are facing criminal charges for the crime. Eleven are former directors, managers, and engineers at Vale, and four are employees of TÜV SÜD.

In both cases, the defendants may be punished for aggravated murder with possible intent – i.e., when the risk of death is assumed.

In the complaint submitted to Munich prosecutors, employees of the German holding company may also be convicted of crimes of negligence leading to flooding and corruption.