The Interplay between the CAOF Agreement and BBNJ Agreement: A Chinese Perspective

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is more  of an Opinion rather than a scientific article. It contains huge amounts of information which, maybe, could provide useful to anyone interested in the subject, but still, it is filled with technical terms and details which really narrows down the number of potential readers.

In general, it is well written with some small typographical or other errors that need correcting. 

The citation style does not follow the Journal's Guidelines and should be corrected accordingly. The footnotes are very distracting while trying to read the text, since they sometimes take more than half of the page.

The information provided, although probably usefeul, is presented in an overly dersriptive way. It seems more like a narration of the story behind the Agreements rather than the actual politics and strategies that dwell underneath. Where exaclty does the "Chinese prespective", mentioned in the title, apply? Apart from the lat section of the 4th part and most of the 5th part of the manuscript, everything else mentioned there is more or less objective the state of things. I don't see a certain "prespective".

In any case, even though in my personal opinion, the manuscript requires a major reconstrunction, it could still be accepted as long as the author changes the citation style and fixes the formating of the text (see comments within the attached pdf file).

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

This author would like to thank the reviewer. 

My response to your advice, please find the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

thank you for this interesting article. I must admit, however, that I am not a legal expert and especially not for this type of negotiation on UN level.  Therefore, I have only one general comment as I hope that other reviewers more familiar with this processes can judge the content better than myself. For me the article includes much too many details but may be for a legal discussion of these negotiations this is necessary. 

What I miss is a short summary at the beginning on why such agreements are necessary. Was there a problem with unsustainable exploitation of resources (as one possibility) in the past? Does that mean that now we need an international agreement? The whole paper is only on the different negotiations, what is the role of China etc. but nowhere is any reflection what the issues are in the management of the high seas. With some information on this it will be, so my hope, much clearer why this agreements are necessary and why countries may also have different positions. 

Author Response

This author would like to thank the advices provided by the reviewer. 

For my reply to the reviewer, please find the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the revisions. I have no further comments.