Nearly 75% of Earth's surface lies beyond national boundaries - in the deep sea, high seas and Antarctica. Regimes to govern these international spaces originated after the Second World War, representing a fundamental governance transition and challenge in our civilization to balance national interests along with common interests on a global scale. For Earth's biota, such stewardship involves the dynamics of interconnected ecosystems with issues of sustainable development, environmental security and the interplay of diverse institutions.

The first framework to govern a region beyond national boundaries was the 1958 Convention on the High Seas, which formalized several long-standing concepts of international law, including freedoms of navigation and fisheries as well as pollution prevention. It was the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, however, that first governed all activities in an international space, demonstrating how common interests can be used to overcome distrust among nations. Beyond serving as the precedent for the 1968 and 1972 non-armament treaties for outer space and the deep sea, respectively, the Antarctic Treaty system began setting standards for species conservation. With advice from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, these conservation measures evolved into the 1980 Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), which introduced an ecosystem approach for the rational use of "harvested, dependent and related populations" living south of the Antarctic Convergence - an ecologically-defined area with global importance because of its extensive biomass. A principal problem for CCAMLR and other regional fishery management organizations is illegal, unreported and unregulated harvesting of species for food. With the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), humankind made a huge leap to manage the world ocean in a holistic context across national and international zones, which include the high seas and deep sea. A special feature of UNCLOS is the "common heritage of mankind," which applies to the rational management and equitable sharing of mineral resources but not biological resources from the deep sea-bed. While the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity establishes conservation of biological diversity as a "common concern of humankind" with scope over processes and activities regardless of where their effects occur, bioprospecting and equitable sharing of genetic-resource benefits remain unresolved from the deep sea and other international spaces. International spaces are further supplemented by environmental regimes, such as the 1992 Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic, which proposed marine protected area status for the mid-ocean ridge along the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone.

Integrating land, water, atmosphere and biota with forcing from the Sun - the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change provides a management strategy for the Earth system. On this planetary scale, balancing the governance of nation states and international spaces offers hope for the lasting benefit of all.

• Article at IAP
• Article at Informaworld