International ocean governance and Norway.

The project is a strategic programme on international ocean politics and its implications to Norwegian Ocean governance. The developments in important global policy spaces relating to the environment, trade and oceans in general are assessed and analysed with a view to the implications to coastal states in terms of resources conservation and distribution of rights to resources. As far as conservation is concerned, the project focuses on new principles for resources management, such as the ecosystem approa ch. The distributive aspects are analysed with a view to distributive criteria as well as interaction between the trade regime and the international ocean regime. The capacity of domestic institutions to respond to the challenges raised in international f ora are explored, along with an assessment of the performance of the domestic resources management regime.