User:Tsarivan613/Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region

The Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region, commonly called the Cartagena Convention, is an international agreement for the protection of the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and a portion of the Atlantic Ocean. It was adopted on 24 March 1983, entered into force on 11 October 1986 subsequent to its ratification by Antigua and Barbuda, the ninth party to do so, and has been ratified by 26 parties. It has been amended by three major protocols: the Protocol Concerning Co-operation in Combating Oil Spills in the Wider Caribbean Region (Oil Spills Protocol), the Protocol Concerning Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife to the Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region (SPAW Protocol) and the Protocol Concerning Pollution from Land-Based Sources and Activities to the Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region (LBS Protocol).

History
The United Nations Environment Programme established the Regional Seas Programme in 1974, which works to promote the development of conventions and action plans for protection of 18 designated regional seas, of which the Wider Caribbean is one. The Wider Caribbean encompasses the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea and the Straits of Florida out to 200 nautical miles from shore.

In 1981, the Caribbean Environment Programme (CEP) was established for protection and development of the Wider Caribbean, and a regional Action Plan was formulated at a meeting in Montego Bay, Jamaica. An impetus for the establishment of the CEP and the subsequent adoption of the Cartagena Convention was the major oil spill that occurred after two very large crude carriers, tankers SS Atlantic Empress and Aegean Captain collided off Trinidad and Tobago in July 1979. Between the collision itself and the subsequent breakup of the Atlantic Empress near Barbados two weeks later while under tow, it was the largest tanker spill ever, with loss of approximately 286,000 metric tons of oil to the marine environment. One month prior, the Ixtoc I oil spill began in the Bay of Campeche, which, after the 10 months required to stop the leakage from the blown-out oil well, became the largest oil spill to that point (476,190 metric tons). Approximately 250 spills, incidents that result in the release of greater than 0.17 metric tons of oil, occur annually in the oil-producing Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea according to estimates published in 2007.

The Cartagena Convention was the product of the first Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region, held in Cartagena, Colombia between 21 and 24 March 1983. The Convention and its first protocol, the Oil Spills protocol, were concurrently adopted on 24 March 1983. Subsequent plenipotentiary conferences in 1990, in Kingston, Jamaica, and in 1999, in Oranjestad, Aruba, led to the adoptions of the SPAW Protocol and the LBS Protocol, respectively. Members of the original convention and Oil Spills Protocol can separately ratify the latter two protocols. As of 2024, 18 members have ratified the SPAW Protocol, which entered into force in 2000, and 15 have ratified the LBS Protocol, which entered into force in 2010.