Offshore marine conservation in the North-East Atlantic: Opportunities and challenges for the developing regime

摘要: This thesis examines the development of the first offshore Marine Protected Area (MPA) on the UK Continental Shelf, the Darwin Mounds area of cold-water coral reefs discovered in 1998 off the North-West coast of Scotland. Following the 1999 Greenpeace High Court judgment and subsequent rulings by the European Court of Justice, the EC Habitats Directive is now deemed to apply throughout Member States' territories (ie out to 200 nautical mile limits of their Exclusive Economic/Fishery Zones). Damage to the Darwin Mounds area caused by deep-water trawling fishing activity has been observed and in 2003, at the UK's request, the European Commission imposed a ban on bottom trawling in the area, which became a permanent measure in 2004. This move was made possible by the revised Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and represents the first instance of a closure for nature conservation, rather than fish …