Governing the oceans : a study into Norway's ocean governance regime in the wake of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Increasing use of ocean space, through land or sea industries, has over time caused aggregated ecological problems as well as state jurisdictional issues thus leading to the development of regimes for regulating and reversing such effects and disputes. In this context, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) constitutes a fundamental instrument for the governance of the marine environment and its resources. Currently, the urgent need to resolve depletion of ocean resources has led us to gradually include the principles of sustainable development in the ocean governance spectrum. Amid growing international efforts to preserve oceans, the United Nations (UNs) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) introduced a new form of ocean governance by integrating seasonable sustainability perspectives to the hitherto established ocean governance status quo. This paper aims to explore Norway's ocean governance regime contributing thus to the discourse of country's transition and shaping to address latest sustainability challenges. To do so, a socio-legal scholarship is adopted. Drawing on hypotheses from extensive review and contextual analysis by a total of 158 Norwegian government sources and literature, the article identified significant adjustments to the Norwegian ocean governance model, as well as weaknesses that need further intervention