Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) agreement - implementing Part IV: consultation analysis - summary report

1. Executive summary

The Scottish and UK Governments held a joint consultation on the implementation of Part IV of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement (BBNJ) concerning Environmental Impact Assessments in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) from 21 November 2025 to 19 December 2025. There were 28 questions, 22 responses received, of which seven were relevant specifically to Scotland.

Due to the compressed timeframe between consultation opening and the upcoming Scottish election, the Scottish Government is publishing this rapid review of Scottish-relevant consultation responses to progress with developing the Scottish Statutory Instrument (SSI) prior to a joint response being published. It describes the consideration of the views relevant to Scotland’s devolved position, analysis of key points and outlines the Scottish Government’s position to implementing Part IV of the BBNJ Agreement for activities with a nexus to Scotland, including planned alignment on licensing requirements with UK Government. A joint Government response will be published at a later date.

Following the current review, Scottish Ministers have decided that the SSI is necessary to extend the marine licensing regime to cover activities which may occur in ABNJ, amend certain current marine licensing exemptions to reflect activities occurring in ABNJ, introduce new exemptions for specific activities in ABNJ and to update licensing exemptions to appropriately reflect the division of licensing responsibilities between UK Government and Scottish Ministers.

This includes exempting activities where impacts would be below the thresholds set by Article 30 of the BBNJ Agreement, specifically exempting cable laying, maintenance and removal activity in ABNJ, extending existing exemptions on grounds of those activities either being needed in the event of an emergency or being day-to-day activities and having little environmental impact.

Amendments to existing exemptions for the placement of fish farming equipment are being made through a separate, but concurrent, SSI and are being introduced to limit the range of the exemption to the Scottish marine are.

Scottish Ministers also intend to revise an existing exemption in Article 35 of the Marine Licensing (Exempted Activities) (Scottish Inshore Region) Order 2011.

Amendments made through this SSI are intended to mirror the approach taken by UK Government where appropriate, and double regulation by the marine licensing regimes will be avoided by revised exemptions in both Scottish and UK secondary legislation.

The partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA), Island Communities Impact Assessment (ICIA) Screening, Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) record, Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment (CRWIA) have been updated and finalised based on responses received. The finalised impact assessments will be published on the Scottish Government website.