Interactions Between SDG 14 (Life Below Water) and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions): A Review of Co-benefits, Synergies, Conflicts, and Trade-Offs

Understanding the interactions between SDG 14 and SDG 16 is important as the success of ocean governance relies on effective, accountable, and transparent institutions and representative decision-making. At the same time, ocean governance can help establish peace, justice, and strong institutions in the ocean realm. Mapping the interactions between the two goals is crucial to understand the way forward for implementing them. Despite this, the there is limited and fragmented knowledge on the interaction between the two goals. This chapter aims to provide an overview of the current research landscape on the possible interactions between SDG 14 and 16, to understand better the current research gaps and potential avenues for future research. For this purpose, we reviewed the literature and also sought the opinions of researchers and policy makers via an interactive workshop. The main co-benefit highlighted in the literature is that more equitable and inclusive decision-making processes can render more effective ocean and coastal governance by enhancing contextual knowledge and incentivizing compliance. Research on synergistic interactions between SDG 14 and 16 is lacking, although existing research points out that reducing violence and promoting peace decreases the degradation of the ocean ecosystems, and ocean and coastal governance can reduce the risk of violent conflict. Regarding the trade-offs between SDG 14 and 16, it can be concluded that stricter regulations on marine and coastal resources increase the risks of violent conflicts due to heightened competition over resources. Such regulations can also enforce social injustices, where socially a nd economically disadvantaged groups might face repercussions as a side effect of regulations on ocean usage. A key finding of this study is that there is limited research on the conflicts and trade-offs, between SDGs 14 and 16. More context-specific studies are needed to address this issue. For instance, the pursuit of SDG7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) through hydropower projects could undermine biodiversity on both water and land, resulting in challenges to SDG 14 (Life Below Water) and SDG 15 (Life on Land). Such trade-offs and conflicts should be better addressed in future research.