In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly (‘UNGA’) agreed to develop a new internationally legally binding instrument concerning the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (’biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction’ or ‘BBNJ’) (UNGA, 2015, (A/RES/69/292)).  The instrument will be an Implementing Agreement under the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (‘UNCLOS’) and will be described as the ‘Implementing Agreement’ throughout this document.  UNGA decision 69/292 takes into account the recommendations of States through the BBNJ Working Group (established in 2006) and establishes a Preparatory Committee to make substantive recommendations to the UNGA on the “elements of a draft text of an international legally binding instrument under UNCLOS”.  Following the 2015 UNGA resolution, it was agreed that the instrument would focus on four overarching issues.  These are known as the ‘Package deal’ and consist of: marine genetic resources; area-based management tools (‘ABMTs’ including Marine Protected Areas (‘MPAs’)); environmental impact assessments (‘EIAs’); and capacity building and the transfer of marine technology (UNGA, 2014, (A/69/177*item 75).  For a more detailed context, see Wright et al. (2016).  In January 2015 the Working Group reported that “some delegations expressed concern about negotiating a new legally binding agreement without a clear understanding of what it would cover” and that the original package of topics highlighted for discussion in 2011 “was no more than a description of major topics to be addressed, which did not specify which activities would be covered by a new instrument” (UNGA, 2014, (A/69/177*item 75).  Taking these concerns into account, a project was devised to provide a set of legal options for discussion on how an agreement might be formulated in the context of a range of changing pressures on BBNJ. The resulting Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI) funded project is a collaboration between International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Birdlife International, the University of Cambridge and the UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre.