New and emerging activities pose risks to the conservation and sustainable development of ABNJ in the absence of prior assessment, and remain a significant gap under UNCLOS. Environmental impact assessments and strategic environmental assessments are widely accepted as valuable tools for incorporating environmental and social concerns into decision making processes with respect to specific projects or activities (EIAs) or policies, plans or programmes (SEAs). The development of a new international instrument to address the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction ("international Instrument") is an opportunity to incorporate best practices for EIAs and SEAs already found under a number of multilateral and regional agreements, and apply lessons learned from their application. Importantly, the new Instrument should also provide the mechanism for the assessment of cumulative impacts of activities and climate change
