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Lucian Ashworth delves into Elisabeth Mann Borgese’s international thought, showcasing her view of maritime governance as a model for broader global governance.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 8, 2024

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This video video discusses the contributions of Elizabeth Mann Borgese, highlighting her unique role as both a scholar and practitioner in international relations, particularly concerning ocean governance. She played a significant part in the negotiations of the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III), advocating for the oceans as the common heritage of humanity. Borgese also served as the director of the International Ocean Institute in Malta and was a member of the Club of Rome. Her notable publications include "The Oceanic Circle," which explores the relationship between human society and the oceans, and she founded the Ocean Yearbook.

Borgese's work reveals the limitations of land-based political frameworks when applied to oceans, stressing the need for a new, ocean-based political model that recognizes the interconnectedness and three-dimensionality of marine environments. She argued that traditional principles of sovereignty could lead to environmental destruction, advocating instead for collaborative governance to sustainably utilize ocean resources. Her insights offer valuable lessons for enriching international relations by incorporating maritime perspectives.

Despite her significant contributions, Borgese remains largely overlooked in mainstream international relations, a phenomenon that particularly affects women scholars who bridge theory and practice. This video video calls for a renewed examination of her work to advance the discipline's understanding of global and environmental issues related to the oceans, emphasizing that the discipline has largely ignored the crucial role of marine environments in international politics.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

00:00.000 --> 00:02.125
Elizabeth Manor, Jay-Z kind

00:02.125 --> 00:04.485
of crosses the scholar practitioner divide.

00:04.625 --> 00:07.285
Um, as a practitioner, she was heavily involved

00:07.865 --> 00:09.045
in the negotiations

00:09.145 --> 00:11.645
of the third United Nations Conference on the Law

00:11.645 --> 00:14.085
of the Sea, otherwise known as Unclos three.

00:14.705 --> 00:17.325
Uh, and there she championed the idea of the oceans

00:17.345 --> 00:19.085
as the common heritage if humanity,

00:19.785 --> 00:21.125
and also worked closely

00:21.155 --> 00:23.845
with the Aust Austrian delegation to the conference.

00:24.265 --> 00:25.365
Uh, she also,

00:25.385 --> 00:28.005
she ran the International Ocean Institute at Malta

00:28.625 --> 00:31.085
and was the first woman member of the Club of Rome,

00:31.085 --> 00:32.645
which is a group of intellectuals

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and business leaders,

00:33.965 --> 00:35.885
who discussed critical global issues.

00:36.505 --> 00:39.285
But she was also in addition to that, a,

00:39.605 --> 00:40.845
a writer and a scholar.

00:41.265 --> 00:45.165
Uh, her publications include, her 1998 book,

00:45.465 --> 00:48.285
the Oceanic Circle, which is perhaps the best summary

00:48.905 --> 00:50.845
of her life, work on the relationship

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between human society on the one hand,

00:53.285 --> 00:54.565
and the oceans on the other.

00:55.185 --> 00:56.245
She also founded

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and edited the ocean yearbook,

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which brought together work on ocean governance.

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And also after 1978, she was a researcher

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and a professor at Dalhousie University in

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Nova Scotia in Canada.

01:09.105 --> 01:11.325
Uh, she's also the author of several popular books

01:11.325 --> 01:13.685
that covered ocean mining, aquaculture

01:14.425 --> 01:16.005
and the story of the oceans.

01:16.505 --> 01:19.445
She was very fond of pointing out in her work

01:19.515 --> 01:24.045
that the Earth's surface was 71% covered in oceans,

01:24.545 --> 01:26.605
and that by a curious coincidence,

01:26.605 --> 01:28.805
humans are 71% salty water.

01:29.385 --> 01:32.045
Uh, yet even then, this figure

01:32.045 --> 01:34.765
of 71% didn't really tell the whole story.

01:35.185 --> 01:38.125
And if we factored in the third vertical dimension,

01:38.625 --> 01:42.045
the oceans actually contained about 99% by volume

01:42.225 --> 01:44.845
of the space on Earth hospitable to life.

01:45.785 --> 01:48.165
Yet she's really only came

01:48.165 --> 01:52.325
to her interest in the oceans in 1967, in her late forties.

01:52.865 --> 01:55.205
Before then, she was probably better known

01:55.225 --> 01:58.085
for her 1963 book, the A Center Woman

01:58.585 --> 02:00.965
and her work on both the Chicago Committee

02:01.025 --> 02:02.525
to Frame a World Constitution

02:03.145 --> 02:04.445
and at the Center for the Study

02:04.445 --> 02:06.405
of Democratic Institutions in California.

02:07.105 --> 02:10.485
Uh, in addition to this, the fame of the family,

02:10.505 --> 02:12.445
she came from has to be mentioned.

02:12.545 --> 02:15.565
She was the youngest child of the author Thomas Mann,

02:15.665 --> 02:18.965
and had fled from Nazi Germany with her family in the 1930s.

02:19.865 --> 02:22.405
Uh, she's was recognized in her lifetime

02:22.705 --> 02:24.365
by honors from both the Austrian

02:24.365 --> 02:26.885
and Canadian governments, who was a member of the Order

02:26.885 --> 02:29.285
of Canada, and there is even a German

02:29.305 --> 02:30.925
survey ship named after her.

02:31.265 --> 02:34.125
Now, as far as I know that she is one

02:34.125 --> 02:37.045
of only two international relations scholars

02:37.045 --> 02:38.245
with a ship named after them.

02:38.545 --> 02:41.925
Uh, the other being Condoleezza Rice International Relations

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is a discipline or colloquially called IR is very much a

02:46.645 --> 02:49.325
lamb based field, but the same could be said of course,

02:49.375 --> 02:50.645
about, most

02:50.645 --> 02:52.765
of our dominant political and economic ideas.

02:53.305 --> 02:56.685
Now from J for Jay-Z's point of view are politics based

02:56.685 --> 02:59.845
around ideas of the nation, state of sovereignty.

03:00.015 --> 03:03.925
Sharp borders under two dimensional politics is a

03:04.055 --> 03:06.485
land-based, politics developed

03:06.485 --> 03:08.725
for an environment built upon solid ground

03:09.225 --> 03:11.365
and interpreted via two dimensional maps.

03:12.025 --> 03:15.685
By contrast, she argued the ocean suggests a different set

03:15.685 --> 03:17.085
of political norms, one,

03:17.085 --> 03:19.005
based upon the realities of the sea.

03:19.425 --> 03:22.645
Uh, it's fluid interdependent three-dimensional

03:22.905 --> 03:24.565
and necessarily interconnected.

03:25.225 --> 03:27.245
So what concerned Borje Z was

03:27.245 --> 03:31.285
that the ocean has enormous potential to deliver prosperity

03:31.285 --> 03:32.805
for the world's population as a whole,

03:33.255 --> 03:36.045
hence her interest in seabed mining and aquaculture.

03:36.665 --> 03:39.365
But that these activities required very different

03:39.475 --> 03:42.085
ocean-based ways of thinking if they were

03:42.085 --> 03:44.365
to deliver prosperity in a sustainable way

03:44.905 --> 03:48.405
and to be more than just a dangerous environment,

03:48.475 --> 03:50.725
degrading stripping of the ocean resources

03:50.945 --> 03:53.445
by richer countries and larger corporations.

03:54.385 --> 03:58.125
So in Borje Z's work, the ocean is both a victim

03:58.305 --> 04:00.645
of misplaced terrestrial assumptions

04:01.145 --> 04:02.205
and also a medium

04:02.355 --> 04:04.845
that can teach us a different set of political ideas.

04:05.665 --> 04:07.565
In the first of these, the ocean is victim

04:08.295 --> 04:09.925
Borje criticized attempts

04:09.925 --> 04:13.925
to apply the terrestrial principles of property sovereignty,

04:14.335 --> 04:15.885
clear boundaries onto the ocean.

04:16.315 --> 04:18.245
From her point of view, this would lead

04:18.245 --> 04:20.685
to the ultimate destruction of the ocean environment.

04:21.305 --> 04:24.165
But the O Ocean could also act as the basis

04:24.345 --> 04:25.925
for a new interdependent

04:26.265 --> 04:28.085
and inclusive model for politics

04:28.355 --> 04:31.205
that necessarily thinks in three dimensions, not to,

04:32.225 --> 04:35.205
in short, a new model for politics based on the nature

04:35.225 --> 04:37.685
of the sea and on the kind of institutions

04:37.685 --> 04:39.925
that would be needed to unlock the wealth

04:39.945 --> 04:42.445
of the oceans both effectively and sustainably.

04:43.185 --> 04:46.005
And it was this view that was behind her advocacy

04:46.005 --> 04:48.525
of the oceans as a common heritage of humanity,

04:48.985 --> 04:51.045
of her support for the establishment

04:51.045 --> 04:53.365
of the International Seabed Authority in particular,

04:53.905 --> 04:56.005
and Unclos three in general.

04:56.225 --> 05:00.245
Indeed, she saw the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea,

05:00.425 --> 05:03.685
UNCLOS three as a bare bones constitution for the oceans,

05:03.895 --> 05:06.765
which would then be fleshed out by the development of

05:07.725 --> 05:10.285
functional organizations that would make a reality

05:10.345 --> 05:13.445
of the ideas promoted by the Law of the Sea Conference.

05:14.185 --> 05:17.885
And it's here that we also see the essence of borer Z's work

05:18.195 --> 05:21.005
that also explains why she's often overlooked

05:21.145 --> 05:23.365
by more mainstream IR scholars.

05:23.785 --> 05:25.845
She defies the lazy divide

05:25.915 --> 05:28.485
between the pragmatic and the utopian.

05:28.815 --> 05:30.965
She's both scholar and practitioner.

05:31.295 --> 05:33.245
She's both idealist and pragmatist.

05:33.465 --> 05:35.805
Uh, she used the world of the practitioner,

05:36.135 --> 05:38.685
especially the world of Unclos three,

05:39.145 --> 05:40.925
to advance new ways of doing things.

05:41.345 --> 05:42.885
If she met resistance to change,

05:42.905 --> 05:46.565
she would very pragmatically look for new practical roots

05:46.985 --> 05:49.965
for her idealism, but her idealism never changed.

05:50.625 --> 05:53.885
Her work was very much rooted in the world of the concrete

05:53.885 --> 05:56.445
and the practitioner, but she did it. Uh,

05:57.185 --> 05:58.885
Uh, but yeah, sorry.

05:59.035 --> 06:02.165
Dumb dumb. But she did not see it as a constraint,

06:02.385 --> 06:04.605
but rather as a series of as

06:04.705 --> 06:07.365
yet unrealized avenues for change.

06:08.185 --> 06:10.245
Uh, it's important to point out that,

06:10.695 --> 06:14.005
Borzi from 1978 was also an IR professor at

06:14.075 --> 06:15.245
Dalhousie University.

06:15.905 --> 06:16.965
And despite writing

06:17.025 --> 06:19.645
and teaching in the areas of maritime governments

06:19.645 --> 06:24.045
and development, she is also still little known in ir

06:24.155 --> 06:25.885
outside of the circle of her students

06:25.945 --> 06:27.125
and immediate colleagues.

06:27.545 --> 06:30.405
Uh, this was a common fate for many IR scholars

06:30.405 --> 06:32.605
who straddled the scholar practitioner divide

06:32.945 --> 06:35.365
and was doubly true for women who often turned

06:35.425 --> 06:38.045
to other forms of work while academic

06:38.045 --> 06:39.285
career was denied them.

06:40.395 --> 06:43.575
Yet a rediscovery of the works of Boor JayZ

06:43.575 --> 06:47.295
by IR scholars could really help enrich IRS's global

06:47.555 --> 06:51.255
and topical credentials by bringing in the oceans boor.

06:51.325 --> 06:54.935
Jay-Z's work helps expand our horizons to the other major

06:55.515 --> 06:58.415
worlds that takes up 71% of the Earth's surface,

06:58.955 --> 07:00.775
the oceans at the same time.

07:01.585 --> 07:04.295
Borje Z's concentration on the interactions

07:04.295 --> 07:05.335
between governments

07:05.715 --> 07:09.215
and the wider ecology forces us to recognize the importance

07:09.215 --> 07:10.615
of environmental conditions

07:11.075 --> 07:13.255
as both an influence on human governance

07:13.795 --> 07:16.695
and a sphere that is being changed by human activity.

07:17.265 --> 07:20.855
Human Society is in Bo Jay-Z's work both a product

07:20.995 --> 07:22.975
of natural forces and a force

07:23.035 --> 07:24.655
of nature changing its psychology.

07:24.975 --> 07:28.295
Consequently, Bo Jay-Z's work could help us in the effort

07:28.295 --> 07:30.015
to build an IR for the anthrop.

07:30.365 --> 07:32.735
Well, for me, the most important lesson we can draw from

07:33.085 --> 07:35.815
BJ's work is to lift the scales from our eyes

07:35.915 --> 07:38.175
and make us realize that we

07:38.175 --> 07:40.775
who study international politics have ignored the role

07:40.795 --> 07:43.015
played by 71% of the Earth's surface

07:43.475 --> 07:45.655
and 99% of its habitable space.

07:46.395 --> 07:48.935
Um, on the island of Newfoundland where I live,

07:49.005 --> 07:52.615
there's a a name for a person who's unable to go to sea

07:53.115 --> 07:55.335
and contribute to the maritime based economy.

07:56.045 --> 07:57.535
They're called hangar shores.

07:58.035 --> 08:00.135
Uh, so much of the discipline

08:00.135 --> 08:03.335
of IR has been a predominantly hangar shore field,

08:04.635 --> 08:06.855
and it's now time we got our feet wet.

00:00 - Elizabeth Manor, Jay-Z kind of crosses the scholar practitioner divide. as a practitioner, she was heavily involved in the negotiations of the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, otherwise known as Unclos three.

00:14 - and there she championed the idea of the oceans as the common heritage if humanity, and also worked closely with the Aust Austrian delegation to the conference. she also, she ran the International Ocean Institute at Malta and was the first woman member of the Club of Rome, which is a group of intellectuals and business leaders, who discussed critical global issues.

00:36 - But she was also in addition to that, a, a writer and a scholar. her publications include, her 1998 book, the Oceanic Circle, which is perhaps the best summary of her life, work on the relationship between human society on the one hand, and the oceans on the other. She also founded and edited the ocean yearbook, which brought together work on ocean governance.

01:01 - And also after 1978, she was a researcher and a professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia in Canada. she's also the author of several popular books that covered ocean mining, aquaculture and the story of the oceans. She was very fond of pointing out in her work that the Earth's surface was 71% covered in oceans, and that by a curious coincidence, humans are 71% salty water.

01:29 - yet even then, this figure of 71% didn't really tell the whole story. And if we factored in the third vertical dimension, the oceans actually contained about 99% by volume of the space on Earth hospitable to life. Yet she's really only came to her interest in the oceans in 1967, in her late forties. Before then, she was probably better known for her 1963 book, the A Center Woman and her work on both the Chicago Committee

02:01 - to Frame a World Constitution and at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in California. in addition to this, the fame of the family, she came from has to be mentioned. She was the youngest child of the author Thomas Mann, and had fled from Nazi Germany with her family in the 1930s. she's was recognized in her lifetime by honors from both the Austrian and Canadian governments, who was a member of the Order

02:26 - of Canada, and there is even a German survey ship named after her. Now, as far as I know that she is one of only two international relations scholars with a ship named after them. the other being Condoleezza Rice International Relations is a discipline or colloquially called IR is very much a lamb based field, but the same could be said of course, about, most of our dominant political and economic ideas.

02:53 - Now from J for Jay-Z's point of view are politics based around ideas of the nation, state of sovereignty. Sharp borders under two dimensional politics is a land-based, politics developed for an environment built upon solid ground and interpreted via two dimensional maps. By contrast, she argued the ocean suggests a different set of political norms, one, based upon the realities of the sea. it's fluid interdependent three-dimensional

03:22 - and necessarily interconnected. So what concerned Borje Z was that the ocean has enormous potential to deliver prosperity for the world's population as a whole, hence her interest in seabed mining and aquaculture. But that these activities required very different ocean-based ways of thinking if they were to deliver prosperity in a sustainable way and to be more than just a dangerous environment, degrading stripping of the ocean resources

03:50 - by richer countries and larger corporations. So in Borje Z's work, the ocean is both a victim of misplaced terrestrial assumptions and also a medium that can teach us a different set of political ideas. In the first of these, the ocean is victim Borje criticized attempts to apply the terrestrial principles of property sovereignty, clear boundaries onto the ocean. From her point of view, this would lead

04:18 - to the ultimate destruction of the ocean environment. But the O Ocean could also act as the basis for a new interdependent and inclusive model for politics that necessarily thinks in three dimensions, not to, in short, a new model for politics based on the nature of the sea and on the kind of institutions that would be needed to unlock the wealth of the oceans both effectively and sustainably. And it was this view that was behind her advocacy

04:46 - of the oceans as a common heritage of humanity, of her support for the establishment of the International Seabed Authority in particular, and Unclos three in general. Indeed, she saw the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS three as a bare bones constitution for the oceans, which would then be fleshed out by the development of functional organizations that would make a reality of the ideas promoted by the Law of the Sea Conference. And it's here that we also see the essence of borer Z's work

05:18 - that also explains why she's often overlooked by more mainstream IR scholars. She defies the lazy divide between the pragmatic and the utopian. She's both scholar and practitioner. She's both idealist and pragmatist. she used the world of the practitioner, especially the world of Unclos three, to advance new ways of doing things. If she met resistance to change,

05:42 - she would very pragmatically look for new practical roots for her idealism, but her idealism never changed. Her work was very much rooted in the world of the concrete and the practitioner, but she did it. but yeah, sorry. Dumb dumb. But she did not see it as a constraint, but rather as a series of as yet unrealized avenues for change. it's important to point out that, Borzi from 1978 was also an IR professor at

06:14 - Dalhousie University. And despite writing and teaching in the areas of maritime governments and development, she is also still little known in ir outside of the circle of her students and immediate colleagues. this was a common fate for many IR scholars who straddled the scholar practitioner divide and was doubly true for women who often turned to other forms of work while academic

06:38 - career was denied them. Yet a rediscovery of the works of Boor JayZ by IR scholars could really help enrich IRS's global and topical credentials by bringing in the oceans boor. Jay-Z's work helps expand our horizons to the other major worlds that takes up 71% of the Earth's surface, the oceans at the same time. Borje Z's concentration on the interactions between governments and the wider ecology forces us to recognize the importance

07:09 - of environmental conditions as both an influence on human governance and a sphere that is being changed by human activity. Human Society is in Bo Jay-Z's work both a product of natural forces and a force of nature changing its psychology. Consequently, Bo Jay-Z's work could help us in the effort to build an IR for the anthrop. Well, for me, the most important lesson we can draw from BJ's work is to lift the scales from our eyes

07:35 - and make us realize that we who study international politics have ignored the role played by 71% of the Earth's surface and 99% of its habitable space. on the island of Newfoundland where I live, there's a a name for a person who's unable to go to sea and contribute to the maritime based economy. They're called hangar shores. so much of the discipline of IR has been a predominantly hangar shore field,

08:04 - and it's now time we got our feet wet.

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