There is today a universal consensus that “innovative ways” have to be found to generate “new and additional funding” for the implementation of all the Programmes and Action Plans produced by the UNCLOS/UNCED Process Sustainable development, whether terrestrial, in coastal zones or in the ocean requires the eradication of poverty, and this has been estimated conservatively to cost about 600 billion dollars over the next 5 years. Without new and additional funding, the Global Programme of Action, Agenda 21, the Barbados Plan of Action, and all the rest, will largely remain on paper.

　

　In the broad context of Ocean Governance, four “innovative ways” should be considered:

　

　

This has been described in the previous section on technology development and transfer. The most important aspect of this way of generating funds is that it is not a punitive measure, it is not an imposition, but a productive, mutually advantageous process. The blending between the public and the private sector, not “privatisation,” will be the key to the solution of many problems of “globalisation.”

　

　

Nobel Laureate James Tobin put forward his quite revolutionary proposal in a modest article, entitled “A Proposal for International Monetary Reform” back in 1978.⁵¹ What he proposed was a tax of between 0.1 and 0.25 percent on international financial transactions in order to discourage short-term and speculative movements of huge funds which, already at that time threatened to destabilize the international financial system. A global, strong movement has since come into being, including intergovernmental organizations, NGO, and Academia, to support and further develop this proposal which is more timely, and more urgent, today than ever before. The sums involved today are a multiple of what they were a quarter of a century ago, mostly through the e-market, and the technologies utilized to control this flow which are much better developed. Official support for this approach came from the Director General of UNESCO, in a paper presented on July 29, 1994:

　

　

　Thus, UNDP has supported the proposal. Additional support came from the World Commission on Environment and Development; from the Brundtland Report, from governments (Canada) during the Rio + 5 Conference, from the International Parliamentarians, the Global Commission to Fund the U.N. plus a growing list of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations. Variations and diversifications of the tax have also been proposed, such as:

　

　

　The Brandt Commission and the South Commission equally recommended international taxation, and a number of scholarly studies have appeared on the subject.⁵⁴

　Obviously, it will take time to implement such a new system of revenue taxation. In the context of ocean governance, where the principle, theoretically, has already been established for the Sea-bed Authority, it could be applied cost-effectively particularly in two sectors:

　

　

　It may be worth noting that an interesting shift has taken place in the generation of wealth from the ocean, just as in the rest of the world, although perhaps even more dramatically, i.e., a shift from an economy based primarily on industrial production and natural resources to one based on services (“the Service Economy”) Ocean-related tourism, including cruise shipping, today generates revenues in the order of $500 billion. Those generated by the fibre-optic cable business presently amount to $1 trillion a year. The “ecological services” rendered by the marine ecosystem have been estimated at $21 trillion out of all global “ecological services” including the tropical forests, which was estimated at $30 trillion.⁵⁵ These figures obviously dwarf those generated by resources and industrial production. The largest of these, for offshore oil and gas, is about $150 billion.

　

　In 1991, the IOI published a study. on the feasibility of establishing a tourist tax on the tourists visiting the Mediterranean every year.⁵⁶ This number of these tourists has surpassed 100 million per year and is estimated to reach 200 million by 2025.⁵⁷ The study was based on a questionnaire, issued in English, French, and Italian, and distributed among 3,000 tourists in Malta, Italy, Greece and Egypt. Among many other things, tourists were asked whether they would be willing to contribute $1, $5, or $20 to the Mediterranean Trust Fund for saving the Environment. The overwhelming majority reacted positively. Most were ready to pay $5. This is of course not surprising, considering that tourism depends on a healthy environment; and tourists usually carry enough loose pocket money to allow for this very modest extra expenditure. Multiplied by 200 million, such a tax would suffice for the effective implementation of all the UNCLOS/UNCED programmes in the Mediterranean!

　

　In its study, New Tasks for the International Sea-bed Authority,⁵⁸ the IOI pointed out that the traditional high-seas freedom to lay cables, just like the other high-seas freedoms, need to be regulated in the 21^st century. The Law of the Sea Convention already provides for their regulation in the EEZ; but analogous measures are needed for the international sea-bed, to avoid conflict of uses, and ensure the safety of the cables. For its services, the International Sea-bed Authority would certainly be entitled to a very modest fee, let us say, 0.001% of the trillion dollars of the cable companies= annual revenues. This billion dollars could well be spent on capacity building in developing countries, enabling them to fully participate in this new, knowledge and human-resources based phase of the industrial revolution. Regulation should be light: as unburdensome as the imposition of a 0.001 percent fee or “Tobin tax.”. An illustrative “model protocol” is attached in Annex I.

　

　Considering, on the one hand, the enormous financial power of today's industrial giants (with budgets larger than those of most national governments) and, on the other, the growing political influence they wield in international relations and the rights they are enjoying to participate in international public fora including the United Nations, it is only fair that, just like States, they should make mandatory and predictable contributions to the United Nations system of organizations, possibly through the GEF which would apply these funds to assist developing countries with the implementation of the UNCLOS/UNCED process.

　

Regulations are as good, it is often said, as the power of enforcement behind them. Enforcement must have two components: there must be a substantive component of self-enforcement: that is, laws and regulations must be convincing to be complied with, and this requires participation in framing them as well as education and training of “stake-holders”; but the second component: Monitoring, Surveillance, and Enforcement, is equally important, especially at a time like ours, when the system of ocean governance is endangered by non-compliance, and international crimes at sea. National coastguards are not able to cope with globalized crime and thus new forms of cooperation, at national, regional and international levels, are needed.

　

　The finger is often pointed at individual nations, and in some cases at agencies within these nations, for absence of effective compliance and enforcement measures. However, if one looks at the enormity of the task at hand, which is, effectively controlling millions of square miles of ocean space, it is clear that the majority of nations do not possess the capacity to meet their obligations. This lacuna only makes nations more vulnerable to environmental degradation and illicit activities within their maritime sectors. The lack of political will, human resources, equipment, etc. are all symptoms of the low levels of funding allocated to compliance and enforcement in the ocean sectors. However, it is also a fundamental reality, that in the case of the most vulnerable nations, SIDS and LDCs, the lack of funding to these programmes is for no other reason than that of an overall lack of resources possessed by the nation.

　

　Perhaps funding for compliance and enforcement programs, on a regional and a national level, could be generated through the application of the above described “innovative funding mechanisms.” There has been some definite, and well documented, progress made in the areas of creating synergies between public and private sectors within the shipping industry. As for the application of a Tobin Tax on such things as tonnage and perhaps even passage, would generate a substantial amount of capitol which could be utilized to build capacities within regimes such as Port State Control, Regional Coast Guards, etc.⁵⁹ These options will be discussed in more depth in Part III.