Introduction
Webster's Dictionary defines “governance” as “the art, manner, function, or power of government.” The Club of Rome has given a somewhat different meaning to this term. In its literature
1 a distinction is made between “government” and “governance”- a distinction that is difficult to reflect in languages other than English (or perhaps French). “Government” is the governance of the State. “Governance” comprises far more. It includes the ways families are organized, or businesses or schools or churches are run. It includes custom, tradition, culture. It is rooted in philosophy and, in the last analysis, depends on the vision we have of the nature of human beings, which determines the relationship they will have with one another and with the rest of nature. “Ocean Governance” then would mean the way in which ocean affairs are governed, not only by governments, but also by local communities, industries and other “stake holders.” It includes national and international law, public and private law as well as custom, tradition and culture and the institutions and processes created by them. Obviously this makes for an extremely complex system. This essay is an attempt to order it in the following sequence:
・ The legal framework
・ The institutional framework
・ The tools of implementation
・ Effects on the historical context
The legal framework is global. Globalisation is upon us, whether we like it or not, and nothing is more global, more interconnected, than the world ocean. The institutional framework has to be analysed at the global, regional, national, and local level. The tools of implementation reach through all these levels to the core of the individual person. The most personal is also the most universal: like a poem, or a dream. Thus the personal vision of the whole is reflected in the universal. It transcends ocean governance and becomes world governance.
