Representatives of more than 100 countries have signed The High Seas Treaty after ten years of negotiations.
The agreement was reached on March 3 at the UN Headquarters in New York City. The latest round of negotiations lasted 38 hours.
According to the document, 30% of the world's oceans will now become a protected area by 2030, bringing in serious restrictions on their use, possibly including a complete ban on fishing and exploration activities like deep sea mining.
The International Seabed Authority will make sure that "any future activity in the deep seabed will be subject to strict environmental regulations and oversight to ensure that they are carried out sustainably and responsibly."
The previous international agreement on the protection of the oceans was signed in 1982 - the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. It introduced the concept of high seas – international waters, where all countries have the right to engage in fishing, navigation and research activities. Only 1.2% of these waters are protected internationally.
It took decades of talks to agree on a new treaty because of contradictions between the states.
Wealthier countries now have the capacity and funds to explore the deep ocean, but poorer countries would like to see discovered resources shared equally.
According to Robert Blasiak, an ocean researcher at Stockholm University, the problem is that no one can estimate the cost of resources that can be extracted from the ocean, therefore, it is not clear how they can be divided.
"If you imagine a big, high-definition, widescreen TV, and if only like three or four of the pixels on that giant screen are working, that's our knowledge of the deep ocean. So we've recorded about 230,000 species in the ocean, but it's estimated that there are over two million," he reportedly said.