Home · News · Profile · Bleuenn Guilloux Studies the Interactions Between Ocean, Climate and Biodiversity Regimes Beyond the Limits of National Jurisdiction

Bleuenn Guilloux Studies the Interactions Between Ocean, Climate and Biodiversity Regimes Beyond the Limits of National Jurisdiction

Hi Bleuenn, can you tell us a bit about your career before joining IUEM as a postdoc?

I have a general law degree (Maîtrise de droit public – University of Rennes). Curious and passionate about the marine environment and ocean sciences, I took an early interest in maritime law and the law of the sea. I spent an Erasmus year studying overseas at Cardiff University, where I wrote a dissertation in maritime law on flags of convenience and the European response. I then moved on to Nantes (M1) and the Masters in Maritime and Oceanic Law (M2), where I prepared a dissertation in law of the sea on the international law of marine scientific research.

I then took a break from my studies for several years for personal reasons. During this period (2004-2010), I worked as a legal assistant in the urban planning and environmental law division of the Nantes administrative court of appeal (2005-2007) and I joined the Coral Initiatives for the Pacific (CRISP) where I worked in the 2-C component on the valorisation of marine active substances headed by Cécile Debitus (research director at the IRD) (2005-2009).

As part of this component, along with law professor Jean-Pierre Beurier (University of Nantes) and my M2 colleague Karolina Zakovska, we have been commissioned to provide humble advice to the governments of three Pacific island states, Fiji, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands, with a view to improving their domestic law on marine biodiversity and, in particular, marine bioprospecting.

Drawing on unforgettable multi-cultural and interdisciplinary encounters and complementary training in the life sciences (UPMC-CNRS, MNHN and IFREMER), I wrote a law thesis on marine genetic resources, Research & Development and the law under the supervision of Jean-Pierre Beurier at the University of Nantes, a thesis defended at the end of 2015 (it was awarded the 2016 Mariani/Aguirre-Basualdo Prize in Law of the Sea by the Chancellerie des universités de Paris-Sorbonne).

The first volume was published by ISTE/WILEY in a bilingual version in 2018, the second volume is planned for 2022 after the end of the negotiations on biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction). Between 2013 and 2014, at the University of Nantes and in 2016-2017, at the UBO, I was also a temporary teaching and research assistant (ATER) and gave lectures to students from L1 to M1 (administrative law, constitutional law, European environmental law) from whom I learnt a lot.

It was at this time that I met Françoise Gaill (Emeritus Director of Research at the CNRS), who was very supportive, and that I began collaborating with the Ocean-Climate platform as part of the Youth for Ocean (YO!) group. This interdisciplinary and international group of young scientists sought to promote the links between climate change, the ocean and society, as at the COP 22 climate conference held in Marrakech in November 2016.

Before joining IUEM as a post-doc at the beginning of 2020, I spent two years (2017-2019) in Kiel in northern Germany (Land Schleswig-Holstein) where I did my first post-doc on the interactions between ocean and climate systems and regimes, funded by the Cluster of Excellence Future Ocean, affiliated to the Walther Schücking Institute of International Law. As a lifelong Germanophile, this discovery of German scientific culture, which is geared towards transdisciplinarity, gave me a lot to learn in terms of working methods and international collaboration in particular.

How did you hear about the ISblue International Postdoc fellowship?

One of my two current supervisors, Denis Bailly (MCF in economics – teacher-researcher at UBO-AMURE), advised me to apply for the ISblue international post-doc programme and join the OUI (Ocean University Initiative) team to work on the international governance of the ocean, biodiversity and climate.

What was your initial Postdoc topic?

My initial post-doc topic (2020-2022) concerns the interactions between ocean, climate and biodiversity regimes beyond the limits of national jurisdiction: a challenge for the sustainability of environmental governance. The term ‘regime interactions’, derived from international relations, refers to the interrelationships between sets of norms, decision-making procedures and organisations revolving around functional domains such as the ocean, biodiversity and climate.

The expression ‘beyond the limits of national jurisdiction’ refers to marine areas outside the exclusive jurisdiction of States, in particular the high seas, where international negotiations are currently taking place under the aegis of the United Nations on a treaty relating to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and concerning the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity (BBNJ Agreement: https://www.un.org/bbnj/fr).

On the basis of the best scientific knowledge available, this future treaty, although aimed at marine biodiversity that is immeasurable and largely unknown in international spaces, should not in principle ignore the strong socio-ecological interactions between the oceanic system and the climate system within the biosphere.

Real politik’ and essentially fragmented international law suggest a different legal reality in practice. My post-doctoral project uses an inter- or even trans-disciplinary method to compare the socio-ecological scientific approach with the fragmented approach of international environmental governance in order to identify possible legal and institutional interactions.

Because of the pandemic, you had to change the focus of your project. Can you tell us more about it?

To provide practical input for my research, I was supposed to attend the fourth intergovernmental conference on the future BBNJ agreement in March 2020 and thus observe the interactions between the players involved in the governance of biodiversity on the high seas; but this conference has been postponed indefinitely because of the Covid-19 pandemic. It should be held at the end of next summer, just a few months before the end of my post-doc.

Similarly, in 2020 I was awarded a thematic fellowship by the United Nations and the Nippon Foundation on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development via the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and Ocean Governance (https://www.un.org/oceancapacity/content/unnf-thematic-fellowship).

This fellowship is aimed primarily at ocean professionals from developing countries working for government bodies to promote sustainable development and build capacity. It involves four months’ theoretical and practical training at the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea at the United Nations headquarters in New York (https://www.un.org/Depts/los/doalos_activities/about_doalos.htm), which has also been postponed indefinitely.

Integrating these contingencies linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, I finalised interdisciplinary publications on the interactions between ocean and climate governance begun during my first post-doc as part of the European Oceangov project: one on ocean acidification as a governance issue in the Mediterranean; the other on the traditional dimensions of underwater mining activities in the Pacific. I also continued my collaboration with researchers from the Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative (DOSI), with whom I carried out an interdisciplinary analysis of the dialogue on the ocean and climate change that took place in December 2020 as part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Our goal was to examine how state and non-state actors can mutually reinforce adaptation and mitigation measures based on the ocean, the main sink and reservoir of greenhouse gases (https://unfccc.int/event/ocean-and-climate-change-dialogue-to-consider-how-to-strengthen-adaptation-and-mitigation-action).

I have also begun research with my colleague Fanny Châles on the nationally determined contributions of small Pacific island countries to the Paris climate agreement. I am also helping to design a serious game, Blue DiplomaSea, on the governance of biodiversity in the high seas, an innovative project led by my OUI colleagues Charline Guillou and Jöelle Richard.

Finally, I’m taking part with colleagues from all over the world in the #VirtualBlueDecade, an alternative exchange and dissemination platform (using information and communication technologies as an alternative to all too many face-to-face scientific gatherings that emit greenhouse gases) that brings together the ocean, biodiversity and climate change communities in an inclusive and open way.

I’d like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank my colleagues at OUI/AMURE/ISblue (in particular, Annie, Denis, Charline, Joëlle and Louise from the OUI dreamteam), my American colleagues at DOSI (the team I work with under the direction of Lisa Levin is 100% female) and my colleagues across the Rhine, who keep me motivated and enthusiastic now and for the future.

Can you describe your day-to-day work?

My day-to-day teleworking is punctuated by legal and extra-legal research, writing scientific publications in English or French (the most enjoyable intellectual activity) and emails (a far less enjoyable and time-consuming activity in the age of hyper-communication), meetings, communications or online courses (too many in my opinion to free up enough time for in-depth work), at times in Paris, New York or Los Angeles, not forgetting reflective walks by the sea in Plougonvelin.

As the in-person training at the Division of Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea has been postponed, the United Nations and the Nippon Foundation are offering certification and webinars to fellows. I completed a Law of the Sea certification last winter, with evening classes and weekly essays, and I’m currently taking part in a series of webinars on ocean sciences, to coincide with the opening of the UNESCO Decade on Marine Science for Sustainable Development.

How do you see your career after your Postdoc?

At the end of my post-doc, I plan to leave the academic research sector where permanent positions are rare, in France at least, for legal researchers who have chosen the interdisciplinary path.

I would like to work in the operational field, either for international organisations or at French, Breton or European level, so that I feel more useful to society and to environmental action. More painfully, I’m thinking of retiring from a job related to the marine environment.

An anxious optimist, I’m already thinking about what’s possible, and in particular the possibility of training in research and innovation law as an extension of my thesis on marine genetic resources, in order to work in the field of marine research development or international scientific and technological cooperation.