(Un)claiming rights,resources,and ocean spaces: Marine genetic resources and area-based management tools in high seas governance negotiations

Designation of ocean territories as a political act

UNCLOS creates EEZs, bounded territories that define the extent of state power over ocean space and resources (Steinberg, 2001). Offshore ocean spaces beyond these boundaries are located outside of single state control. They are subjected to the Freedom of the High Seas Principle (FHSP), through which all are relatively free to use ocean space for peaceful purposes such as navigation and fishing (Broggiato et al., 2018; Rothwell and Stephens, 2010; Steinberg, 2001; Tiller et al., 2020). While states collectively have an obligation under UNCLOS to preserve and protect the marine environment, governance regimes implementing that obligation are often weak in comparison to the dominant FHSP (Freestone et al., 2014; Gjerde et al., 2016).

The UN was able, however, to territorialize the seabed and subsoil beyond national jurisdiction, known as “the Area” (UNCLOS Art. 1(1)) for managing mineral resources. Under UNCLOS, these resources are considered the common heritage of humankind and must be managed for the benefit of all (Peters, 2020; Rothwell and Stephens, 2010; UNCLOS). This Common Heritage of Humankind Principle (CHP) was incorporated into UNCLOS after developing nations expressed concerns that technologically advanced countries would exploit and deplete seabed minerals for their own benefit, causing price drops and disadvantaging the countries that relied on the export of terrestrial minerals for their economies (Rothwell and Stephens, 2010; Tiller et al., 2020). The CHP is intended to neutralize the traditional “first-come first-served” logic that typically applies to the resources of ABNJ by mitigating the technological advantage of certain states and helping to close the gap between nations of the Global North and Global South (Vadrot et al., 2021). While the CHP serves as an important check on the FHSP, it does not expressly apply to the water column of ABNJ nor to the biological resources of the Area (Tiller et al., 2020; Vadrot et al., 2021).

More recently, international negotiations surrounding ocean conservation are producing new territories to achieve governance outcomes on the high seas, such as through the creation and management of marine protected areas (MPAs) (Acton et al., 2019; Freestone et al., 2014; Gjerde and Rulska-Domino, 2012; Gray, 2018). For example, science and technology have been used to discursively recreate ocean space as subject to bounding and territorial control through area-based international agreements (Acton et al., 2019; Campbell et al., 2022b; Gray, 2018). Though regulatory and enforcement capacity to manage these areas is often limited, the designation of boundaries for management impacts ocean governance outcomes and future possibilities. These territorial approaches often create static boundaries for management that fail to account for the dynamism and mobility of ocean resources (Acton et al., 2019; Peters, 2020).

Bounded territories have become a “blueprint” of ocean governance, creating a discourse “so powerful that it is rarely questioned” (Peters, 2020: 4). MPAs, for example, have become “go-to” methods of conservation, such that few alternatives are typically considered (Campbell and Gray, 2019; Peters, 2020). These territorial approaches can and have led to “ocean grabbing” and capitalist exploitation of resources (Bennett et al., 2015; Peters, 2020).

Enclosure of knowledge related to ocean resources

Beyond territorial control of the resources themselves, the privatization of knowledge through the creation of intellectual property rights (specifically patents) has resulted in “the enclosure of the intangible commons of the mind” (Boyle, 2003: 37). Although an international agreement known as the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), negotiated within WIPO, provides a streamlined mechanism for filing patent applications globally, patent rights remain state-sanctioned and territorial in nature (Chisum, 1996; WIPO, 2020). An entity seeking patent protection may file an international application under the PCT, but it must ultimately seek protection within individual state or, in some cases, regional patent offices (Patent Cooperation Treaty, 1970; WIPO, 2020). Once granted, these national or regional patent rights provide the patent-owner with the exclusive right to make, sell, and use inventions within that state territory or region (Bradley, 1996; Chisum, 1996; WIPO, 2020). Importantly, for our purposes, the territorial nature of these rights is connected to the manufacture, sale, importation, and/or use of the end product that is subject to the patent rights (or the product of a patented process); under the status quo, it is not related to the source of the information that led to patentable material nor to broader global markets (see Chisum, 1996).

Although intellectual property rights have often been promoted as necessary to incentivize innovation, critics have questioned whether they are effective in doing so as currently constituted (Boyle, 2003; Runge and Defrancesco, 2006). In the life sciences, in particular, scholars have asserted that patent claims encroach on the culture of academia, challenge the tradition of collaboration in science, and create barriers to researchers in accessing new tools and results (Boyle, 2003; David, 2004). The right to access streams of information is particularly critical to investment in new research frontiers (Runge and Defrancesco, 2006).

The enclosure of knowledge relating to marine resources has already begun (Blasiak et al., 2018, 2020; Vadrot et al., 2021). As a result of technological advances in numerous sectors over the past decade, including pharmaceutical and industrial products, increasing attention is being paid to the value of marine life not just as a material resource but as a source for valuable knowledge derived from genetic material. The private sector is already capitalizing on this value through intellectual property rights; as of a 2018 study, 12,998 genetic sequences from 862 marine species, ranging from plankton to sperm whales, had been subject to patent applications filed under the PCT (Blasiak et al., 2018). Although 221 companies have registered 84% of all patents, a single company accounts for 47% of all applications. International patent claims have been made by entities in 30 countries and the European Union, with 74% of applicants coming from Germany, the United States, and Japan. However, it is unclear whether these MGRs were collected from within national jurisdiction or ABNJ (Österblom et al., 2020; Tiller et al., 2020).

Under existing governance regimes, a state has control over MGRs collected within its borders. The state not only has control over the material resources through fisheries regulations or other management approaches, but it also has control over all genetic resources (terrestrial and marine) through the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (“Nagoya Protocol”), negotiated within the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The Nagoya Protocol is intended to prevent biopiracy and reduce global inequalities resulting from the imbalanced distribution and exploitation of genetic resources (Deplazes-Zemp et al., 2018). While the resources are often found in the biodiverse countries of the Global South with low capacity to extract them, users are often industrialized countries in the Global North. Under the Nagoya Protocol, when genetic resources are accessed within a state's jurisdictional borders, the state controls access to that resource in exchange for sharing the resulting benefits, including financial benefits that may result from patented products, wherever those patent rights are granted (Buck and Hamilton, 2011; Deplazes-Zemp et al., 2018). However, the Nagoya Protocol does not extend to ABNJ, where no state has sovereign control (Blasiak, 2019). Instead, the default regime remains FHSP and a first-come first-served approach whereby property rights of both the material and genetic resources are established by possession (Humphries et al., 2021; Vadrot et al., 2021). Additionally, the traceability regimes of the Nagoya protocol may give rise to competing claims to resources harvested in ABNJ among the state of the flag vessel, states through which MGRs transit, and the state in which the MGRs are ultimately landed (Humphries et al., 2021).

Thus, ABS regimes under the Nagoya Protocol and intellectual property rights (i.e., patent rights) are both territorial, but that territoriality is not commensurate. The Nagoya Protocol allows states to gain subsequent benefit from the use of knowledge gained from resources extracted within their borders. On the other hand, patent rights allow states to control the products made, imported, used, and sold within their borders, without regard to the geographic origin of the resources used to produce the knowledge that led to those patent rights. Under the status quo, states can therefore sanction patent rights controlling the use of knowledge within their borders, privatizing the use of knowledge gleaned from MGRs of ABNJ.

Within versus beyond national jurisdiction: What is an MGR “of” ABNJ?

One challenge facing the parties to the BBNJ Negotiations surrounds defining whether and how the Implementing Agreement will govern MGRs sourced from species that straddle jurisdictional boundaries or that move between them. During the BBNJ Negotiations, parties discussed whether the provisions of the Implementing Agreement should apply to MGRs “accessed in,” “collected in,” “of,” or “originating in” ABNJ. Although the parties were often imprecise about the meaning of these terms, the proposals took one of two perspectives: (1) those who proposed that MGRs collected or accessed in ABNJ should be the only MGRs subject to the Implementing Agreement; and (2) those who sought to include some broader definition that could include MGRs found in ABNJ at some stage of their life cycle, even if collected elsewhere.

Many parties proposed that samples collected or accessed in ABNJ would be subject to the Implementing Agreement, while those collected or accessed within state jurisdictions would be subject to state management. These parties argued that such a definition was necessary to avoid the complexity of dealing with MGRs that may be found both within national jurisdiction and ABNJ. For example, Norway stated that focusing on where MGRs are “accessed” would “help us in a few of these situations where we discuss MGRs that can be sometimes in national waters and sometimes outside, they can be on the bottom on the national shelf, they can be in the water column. If we focus on where they are accessed, that will solve a few of those issues.” Others cited the need to protect the rights of coastal states to access MGRs within their own EEZs. For example, Australia expressed concern that the term “of the high seas and the Area” would “potentially cover … MGRs accessed by a state within its own EEZ” in the case of MGRs that may move between the high seas and a state's EEZ over time. Canada agreed that “this is not about MGR[s] potentially accessed in waters of a coastal state.”

On the other hand, some parties proposed that the point of collection or access should not be a limiting factor in determining which MGRs are subject to the Implementing Agreement. Indonesia made the most specific argument for expansive coverage, arguing that, if an MGR is found in the ABNJ, the provisions should apply regardless of where it is collected. Iran similarly favored including both “accessed in” and “originating from” ABNJ, citing the need to protect MGRs “wherever they could be found.”

These proposals were met with skepticism from other delegations. For example, Singapore stated:

If “originating from” is going to be interpreted as basically where the life of the organism originates, we have some rather odd situations so that an organism that started life in an area within national jurisdiction but is subsequently picked up in [ABNJ] somehow falls outside the instrument which I don’t think is the intent of this instrument. And the converse is an organism that starts life outside, in [ANBJ], and is subsequently collected in situ in an area within national jurisdiction falls within the instrument. Again, I’m not sure that's the intent of the instrument.

Japan similarly indicated that it objected to requiring consent from a coastal state to exploit MGRs in ABNJ where the identical MGRs are also present within state jurisdiction, highlighting the “interesting scenario in which an identical MGR collected in ABNJ [is] found later in [the] territorial sea or EEZ of coastal states—if such [an] MGR in ABNJ is to be designated as a common heritage of [hu]mankind, we wonder whether these MGRs should be regarded as the common heritage of [hu]mankind living in a coastal state's EEZ.”

Thus, MGRs’ mobility across horizontal ocean space demonstrates the limitations of fixed area-based boundaries in ocean management. Many organisms from which MGRs are sourced cross jurisdictional boundaries throughout their life cycles, and some populations straddle these boundaries. For example, sperm whales (whose genomes have been subject to patents (Blasiak et al., 2018)) have the broadest distribution of any marine mammals, with males making long migrations from tropical to temperate waters (NOAA Fisheries, 2021). Likewise, invertebrates can be carried on ocean currents across jurisdictional boundaries.

The collection of MGRs within the EEZ of a coastal state currently triggers the Nagoya Protocol's ABS mechanisms, and the coastal state can share in the benefits of the resource in exchange for permitting access. However, under the status quo, if the organism crosses into ABNJ, private actors can freely collect and utilize it (Thambisetty, 2018). Competing claims to benefits may arise based on the subsequent movement of the resource by those who collect and use it (Humphries et al., 2021), as opposed to the movement of the organism during its life. Thus, even if an organism spends most of its life cycle within state waters, the state may gain no benefit from the resource if it is collected in ABNJ, regardless of how temporary or transient its presence in ABNJ is. Conversely, an organism that spends most of its life cycle in ABNJ, where it belongs to either no one (under the FHSP) or everyone (under the CHP), comes under state control when it crosses into the state's EEZ. This leads to concerns, such as those expressed by Japan, as to whether MGRs become the common heritage of humankind living within a state's EEZ. This becomes further complicated because the spatial application of the CHP is also disputed, as we now discuss.

The seafloor versus the water column: Common heritage of humankind versus freedom of the high seas

MGRs’ vertical mobility likewise poses challenges to existing regimes, complicated by tensions between the CHP and the FHSP. This tension was particularly evident in the first two rounds of negotiations, when the draft objectives relating to MGRs expressly included the CHP. The CHP was absent from the text during the third round of negotiations despite widespread support in earlier negotiations; after developing countries heavily criticized its removal, the principle is now reflected in the draft text for future rounds of negotiations (Vadrot et al., 2021).

As described in more detail by Vadrot et al. (2021), the dispute over the CHP and its application to MGRs influences the degree to which mandatory ABS provisions can be imposed. Some parties, including the United States, Japan, and Russia, asserted that because the CHP has historically applied only to the mineral resources of the Area, it should not be applied to living resources, including MGRs, at all. Our analysis reveals that a spatial component was also relevant in the dispute. Some parties asserted that only the Area (i.e., the seabed and subsoil beyond national jurisdiction) was subject to the CHP, while the water column above it was subject to open access under the FHSP. Under this reasoning, the instrument's ABS provisions would apply only to MGRs of the Area, and not those of the water column.

Many developing countries opposed this assertion and argued for the broad applicability of the CHP to all MGRs, wherever found. For example, Algeria, on behalf of the African Group, noted that there was “a sense of astonishment from this side of the room” that MGRs in the water column would not be covered by the provisions of the Article relating to ABS. This representative noted:

There are some gaps in UNCLOS. We are supposed to close them with this process. When UNCLOS was negotiated, we were not aware of the economic value of MGRs. [The] water column and the Area are the same for us. Wherever there are MGRs in ABNJ, they should be covered by the scope.

Barbados, on behalf of CARICOM, similarly stated that there was “no scientific basis to distinguish between benthic formation and organisms in the Area or other organisms in the high seas.” This view was not limited to developing countries; New Zealand expressed a similar statement, noting that “the geographical scope of the [Implementing] Agreement would likely need to cover both the Area and the high seas given the mobility of [MGRs]. Otherwise, there will continue to be gaps in the legal regime applying to MGRs in ABNJ.”

One party, Bangladesh, proposed a hybrid approach where the Implementing Agreement would apply to MGRs “of the Area, including the waters superjacent to the seabed and subsoil thereof.” This proposal related to parties’ claims to the extended continental shelf, which, under UNCLOS, is subject to state control. While the proposal did not define the term “superjacent,” Bangladesh suggested that MGRs in the water column immediately above the continental shelf would be subject to the Implementing Agreement due to potential confusion arising from their mobility. “Otherwise, if you have [MGRs] on the high seas above the continental shelf, those free-floating [MGRs] on the high seas but above the continental shelf … who owns it? Sometimes it will fall to the continental shelf, sometimes it will be free floating there. That will create problems [under the existing options].”

Eventually, the draft text dropped this hybrid proposal and the proposal limiting ABS provisions to the Area. Instead, both the proposal for the third round of negotiations and the drafts released for the fourth and fifth rounds read that the provisions of the Articles relating to MGRs would apply to both the high seas and the Area. Notwithstanding the apparent simplification in the text in that regard, the reintroduction of the CHP into negotiations (see Vadrot et al., 2021) suggests that the dispute is not resolved. Because UNCLOS expressly applies the CHP to the mineral resources of the Area, the parties were unable to agree whether the principle is limited to those mineral resources, applicable to all resources of the Area alone, or should apply to the water column as well. Indeed, despite the absence of the CHP from the text in the third round of negotiations, developing nations continued to raise the principle as critical to their concerns relating to ABS and MGRs.

The outcome of this dispute in future negotiations could have important implications. If the parties agree that all MGRs, whether in the water column or on the seafloor, are subject to the CHP, MGRs’ vertical mobility will matter little for their governance because they will be subject to this principle whether in the water column or on the sea floor. It will also have little impact on governance if the parties agree that only mineral resources (i.e., not MGRs) of the seabed are subject to the CHP, while all MGRs are governed by the FHSP wherever found in ABNJ.

If, on the other hand, the CHP applies to MGRs found on the seabed, while the FHSP applies to those found in the water column, MGRs’ mobility may complicate their governance. In this scenario, the CHP would require that access to MGRs on the seafloor be managed such that benefits could be shared among current and future generations worldwide. Yet, when that same MGR moved to the high seas, benefits could accrue to its harvesters with no mandate to share them. This could lead to two parallel and conflicting regimes, with confusion concerning in which circumstances ABS regimes apply and in which cases private actors would be free to benefit from the resource without obligation to the international community.

The history and context of the negotiations are important in understanding the impacts of these regimes and approaches. The uncertain benefits of seabed minerals and considerations of global equity served as the premise behind the CHP as applied to seabed minerals (Vadrot et al., 2021). As discussed further by Vadrot et al. (2021), many similar arguments are reflected here. MGRs reveal the tensions between the FHSP and CHP when historically constructed spatial distinctions muddy their application. These issues become further complicated when the focus becomes not on the material resource itself, but on the knowledge gained from that resource, the issue to which we now turn.

The ocean versus the laboratory: Conservation in situ versus sustainable use ex situ

One of the dominant disputes relating to MGRs surrounds whether the Implementing Agreement will only regulate ABS and MGRs access in situ, or whether ABS provisions will also apply to MGRs as they are transferred and translated beyond ocean space. This includes samples of MGRs ex situ; information gleaned from MGRs (referred to as MGRs in silico, digital sequence information, and/or genetic sequence data); and derivative products created from that information. While some parties seek to limit the scope of the Implementing Agreement to MGRs in situ, focusing on their use and conservation within ocean space, others seek to extend ABS regimes to the knowledge that flows from MGRs beyond ocean space.

The parties seeking to limit the scope of the Implementing Agreement's ABS provisions for MGRs often rely on arguments that conservation of the material resource requires restrictions only to in situ access, while access to ex situ samples and knowledge gleaned from the resources should remain unrestricted to promote conservation and sustainable use more broadly. The United States, for example, stated that “the BBNJ Instrument is focused on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity and therefore we should focus on where the [MGRs] are found, which is in the ocean.” Japan highlighted the potential benefits that knowledge gleaned from MGRs might have for conservation, stating that:

by researching on MGR[s], we can obtain important data which is essential for studying the degree of advanced impact on the marine environment…. Enabling all states, including developing countries, to promote conservation and sustainable use of BBNJ through analysis of MGR[s] should be the true benefit to be realized under the new instrument.

Parties that espoused these views further argued that ABS provisions should be limited to MGRs in situ due to concerns that control of access to knowledge beyond ocean space could hamper scientific research for conservation purposes.

Although MGRs have been derived from thousands of organisms, including large migratory species like sperm whales and manta rays (Blasiak et al., 2018), many parties favoring this position presented MGRs as small, renewable resources that do not need to be conserved within ocean space, particularly those resources in the water column. For example, Japan stated that “unlike mineral resources, MGR[s are] renewable…. Research of MGRs is conducted using a sample of MGR in [a] small amount of water so it does not deplete MGR[s]…. Usually we don’t need to conduct an [environmental impact assessment] before taking a bucket full of water from the sea.” China similarly stated that “collection of MGR[s] is small and they tend to be replicable, so this can barely impact upon the biodiversity in the marine environment or its habitats.” These parties often favor ABS regimes that extend only to MGRs in situ.

Other parties, particularly developing nations, have focused on the expanded risks to equity among states that could arise without a mandatory ABS regime extending to the knowledge flowing from MGRs beyond ocean space. For example, Fiji (on behalf of P-SIDS) objected to the views that collecting small samples causes no harm. According to Fiji, this view of “harm” is too limited because it:

ignores informational and functional content. It is what you do with that small sample that is being discussed here. The intellectual property rights applied to the informational and functional content in the small samples of water is what is harmful because it is exclusionary, disadvantages those who want to use that information in the future, and in our view threatens equity.

These parties seek to ensure that the use of MGRs is not only sustainable, but also that the benefits of that use are equitably shared. This extends not only to uses for purposes of conservation, but also to potential commercial uses of the resource.

Uncertain property rights: Where Competing claims to resources meet competing claims to knowledge

MGRs create challenges to territorially defined property rights because uncertainty over the ownership of the underlying material resource is combined with a lack of certainty over the ownership of knowledge derived from that material resource. Under the status quo, knowledge relating to MGRs is currently subject to property rights through patents, leading to concerns about benefits and equity such as those expressed by Fiji. Patent rights are territorial in ways that are disconnected from the spatial distribution of the resource itself and ignore the tensions surrounding ownership over the material resource discussed above. The intellectual property system grants rights based on the location of the product—not the source of the product (Chisum, 1996); yet, questions related to intellectual property are inextricably linked to the ownership of the underlying material resource (Thambisetty, 2022). In other words, states grant exclusivity to products derived from MGRs that cross boundaries and, depending on the applicable regimes, belong at once to specific states as well as to everyone and no one. In this way, patent rights enable states to project their power beyond their physical territory and into ABNJ by controlling knowledge that flows from ocean resources originating in that space.

Many parties to the BBNJ Negotiations view the commercial value of MGRs as highly speculative. They focus instead on MGRs as they are used for marine scientific research aimed at improving conservation, e.g., providing “important data which is essential for studying the degree of advanced impact on the marine environment,” as stated by Japan. These parties have expressed a preference for a voluntary ABS regime that they argue would promote scientific research and increase inclusion in that research among developing nations by combining the sharing of non-monetary benefits and information with CB&TT. MGRs can indeed prove useful in underscoring the need for conservation, leading to new discoveries that can benefit marine environments (Sigwart et al., 2021). However, MGRs are not currently translated into knowledge solely for conservation purposes; scientists produce knowledge that can lead to the development of commercial products as well.

As of 2021, 35,000 marine natural products had already been identified, with approximately 1500 new products described each year (Sigwart et al., 2021). These products have the potential to provide wide-reaching human benefits that go beyond conservation and may be inaccessible from other sources; drugs discovered from marine sources have a fourfold higher rate of success than other compounds. Yet the pathway to identifying these products is long, risky, and speculative. There are also practical challenges to traceability, and it is currently unknown to what extent these commercial products incorporate MGRs of ABNJ (Humphries et al., 2021). Absent certainty in the applicable legal regimes, there is a risk that realizing the benefits of these resources for humankind will be impracticable (Tiller et al., 2020).

This lack of certainty may also have profound impacts for global equity. In the absence of new legislation, the status quo first-come first-served approach will allow the perpetuation of conversion of this knowledge to patent rights in ways that will disproportionately benefit the developed world (Thambisetty, 2018, 2022; Vadrot et al., 2021). Global gaps in the capacity to exploit MGRs are pronounced, with only a handful of (mostly, but not all developed) countries having access to MGRs due to the cost of technology to sample and access samples, scientific skills needed for research on biodiversity, the cost of skills needed for molecular screening, and the scientific skills necessary for data analysis (Broggiato et al., 2018).

Given the uncertain distinction between “commercial activity” and “conservation,” patent rights may limit access to knowledge in ways that could hamper scientific research and academic enterprises (Boyle, 2003; David, 2004). While, theoretically, knowledge from MGRs developed through academic research should enter the public domain, as a practical matter, the sheer volume of genetic material available makes examining patents difficult and gives private entities an advantage that may result in this material ultimately being patented and unavailable for use by researchers (Thambisetty, 2018). This result would be diametrically opposed to the expressed intent of most parties to the BBNJ Negotiations, who often highlight the protection of scientific research as a key concern of the new Implementing Agreement. Thus, many developing countries seek a broader ABS regime that includes the sharing of monetary benefits from all products resulting from the use of knowledge gleaned from MGRs.

While the potential commercial value of this conversion to knowledge may be speculative, the enclosure of knowledge is not speculative. MGRs have already been subjected to patent rights worldwide (Blasiak et al., 2018; Runge and Defrancesco, 2006), which could undermine attempts to meaningfully incorporate CB&TT into the Implementing Agreement. This ongoing activity has led to the concerns, like those expressed by Fiji, that the exclusionary nature of these rights is harmful.

Regardless of whether the parties to the BBNJ Negotiations intend it or not, the inclusion or omission of ABS regimes relating to commercial products from the Implementing Agreement will impact the distribution of financial benefits from these potentially valuable resources. The omission of new regulations from the Implementing Agreement is therefore a choice that will privilege the current knowledge of some actors over others and have continuing impacts for global equity. Just as territorial modes of governance are political acts that allocate space and the resources therein for a particular purpose (Peters, 2020), patent rights allocate the knowledge associated with those resources to private actors. Given these concerns, it is necessary to critically examine these existing and emerging forms of governance and how they converge to understand who has benefitted and who will continue to benefit (Peters, 2020).

The mobility of MGRs complicates their management, particularly due to the incongruencies regarding the territorial nature of patent rights and the traditional territorial regimes governing the control of ocean resources. However, as we now discuss, the ensuing uncertainty also creates new opportunities for management. In particular, MGRs provide a way of opening possibilities not only for the management of MGRs themselves but also for the use of ABMTs in ABNJ governance. In the case of the latter, these openings may lead to more mobile conceptualizations of boundaries that better account for the dynamism of ocean spaces and materialities.