Paying to protect the commons: lessons from the Regional Seas Programme

The financing of plans to protect common international resources has become a major obstacle to the achievement of those plans. Lack of compliance by states with their own freely and publicly agreed financial commitments is endemic to the whole United Nations system. The Regional Seas Programme offers twenty years of experience to efforts to ensure reliable, consistent and adequate funding of their obligations by participating countries. The agreements for the financing of Regional Seas action plans for the protection of the marine environment are reviewed, the state practice is analyzed and recommendations are made that are also applicable to other, non-marine shared resources.