Hope Elizabeth Tracey is a Ph.D. Candidate in the field of Global Environmental Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and the University of Waterloo. Her doctoral research, supervised by Dr. Neil Craik, is focused on ocean governance in areas beyond national jurisdiction, with specific emphasis on the governance of deep seabed mining, marine geoengineering/marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR), and marine bioprospecting.

Hope completed an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Waterloo in 2022, and a B.A. in History from the University of Western Ontario in 2019. Her masters research focused on the regime complex governing both terrestrial and marine bioprospecting under public international law, shedding light on the multifaceted governance of genetic resource utilization including rules and procedures regarding access, intellectual property rights, the science/commerce interface, environmental protection, and benefit-sharing. More specifically, her masters research paper (MRP) focused on the fragmented governance of bioprospecting in the Antarctic Treaty Area, highlighting legislative gaps, ambiguity, and the potential threat that bioprospecting may pose to the longstanding narrative of the Antarctic as a scientific commons.

Hope’s doctoral research – ‘Regime Interaction & Institutional Complexity for New Ocean Governance’ – seeks to investigate the interpretation and implementation of Article 5(2) of the BBNJ Agreement by focusing on three case studies of regime interaction in ocean governance in areas beyond national jurisdiction: (1) the interactional dynamics between the Antarctic Treaty System and the BBNJ Agreement concerning the governance of marine genetic resources; (2) the interactional dynamics between the International Seabed Authority and the BBNJ Agreement with regards to the governance of intersections between deep-sea mining and regulatory areas under the authority of the BBNJ Agreement; and (3) the interactional dynamics between the 1972 London Convention/1996 London Protocol and the BBNJ Agreement concerning the governance of mCDR activity. The primary research question guiding her study is: ‘Are the legal and political dynamics of regime interaction with the BBNJ Agreement fragmentary or cohesive in nature?’ The case studies, via comparative analysis, will help to identify patterns of regime interaction that have explanatory purchase in relation to the political and legal dynamics of interpreting/implementing Article 5(2), as well as provide insights for the literature on integrated oceans management.

Aside from her doctoral research, Hope works as a Graduate Research Assistant to Dr. Neil Craik under two SSHRC grants, is a member of the Waterloo Climate Interventions Strategies Lab (WatCISL), a professional member of the International Carbon Ocean Network for Early Career Researchers (GOA-ICONEC) and Integrated Science to Inform Antarctic and Southern Ocean Conservation (Ant-ICON), and a volunteer member of the Balsillie Global Climate Action Committee.