Elisabeth Mann Borgese

Mother of the Oceans

In public international law circles, especially those indulging in the law of the sea, Elisabeth Mann Borgese (hereinafter EMB), the youngest daughter born to German Nobel Prize-winning novelist Thomas Mann in 1918, is perhaps best known for her pioneering work on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). She is thus often referred to as the “mother of the oceans”. Her convictions and contributions to the UNCLOS focused on social justice, equitable access to resources, and environmental protection. By offering a glimpse into her contributions to the UNCLOS, this post highlights how EMB’s ideology – influenced in part by her cautious feminist beliefs – permeates her legacy.

Portrait of Elisabeth Mann Borgese

A woman devoted to her husband

EMB lived through the aftermath of both World War I and World War II, endured subsequent exile, and witnessed the Cold War – experiences that informed and shaped her political views through constant engagement with the world’s great thinkers of these times. Aside from the writings of feminist great-grandmother Hedwig Dohm (see, e.g., Der Frauen Natur und Recht or Die wissenschaftliche Emancipation der Frau), who passed away when EMB was just one year old, it was men who greatly influenced her thinking (Nexus Lecture, 1). EMB repeatedly highlighted the central role of three of such figures: her father, Thomas Mann; her husband, Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, a literature and political science professor as well as a renowned anti-fascist writer; and her collaborator, Arvid Pardo, a Maltese ambassador and political science scholar, whose 1967 “epoch-making ocean address to the United Nations” left a lasting impact on EMB and ultimately prompted her to establish contact (Nexus Lecture, 11-12).

“The feminist-socialist ideals of my great-grandmother’s time; the socialist humanism or humanist socialism of my father’s and my husband’s time are still with us. The democratic ideals, the ideal of universal peace are still with us, time present and time past, in time future. But time present, My Time, has transformed them, as future generations will transform what we have tried to build.” (Nexus Lecture, 21)

Given the significant male influence and EMB’s evident respect and gratitude towards these men, her writings and legacy solely reveal an agenda cautiously termed feminist. EMB’s perspective on this matter can perhaps be attributed to her upbringing in the Mann household and her marriage to Borgese. From an early age, men – and occasionally women, too – made her acutely aware of her status as a woman within Western society. Aspiring to become a pianist, EMB faced discouragement from her mother: “Don’t try to be a musician: women don’t make good musicians.” Her father chimed in, saying, “Women are good second class.” Recalling this memory in 1999, EMB characterized both of her parents as “unabashed male chauvinists” (Nexus Lecture, 3). Another incident involved a psychiatrist who had told young Elisabeth that women could not achieve both a career and love. She reflected on this memory in the recordings for her biography written by Kerstin Holzer, emphasizing that “this was a choice men would never have to face” (Holzer, 163). At the age of nineteen, however, EMB seemed to have chosen the path of love, marrying Italian intellectual Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, who was 36 years her senior and occasionally described as difficult. She raised two daughters, managed the household, and supported his activities in the informal role as his secretary at the Chicago Committee to Frame a World Constitution – much like her mother had done for her father (Meyer, 41-46). Even though EMB joined the Chicago Committee in 1946 as an academic assistant without any prior higher education, she would later go on to become president of the International Organisation of World Federalists. Yet, she withdrew from that position due to her husband’s demands (Meyer, 54-56).

Emancipation from the household

Only after Borgese died in 1952 did EMB begin to develop a career of her own. She held lectures on “Women and the Future” and published a book entitled “Ascent of Woman” (1963), a title that played on Charles Darwin’s “Descent of Man” (Nexus Lecture, 3). EMB considered the “woman problem”, the “problem of her time”, a social and not an inherently female problem. She noted that feminism tended to flourish in collectivist societies while masculinity thrived in individualistic societies. EMB based this observation on an interdisciplinary approach, drawing from sociology, the arts, mythology, religions, linguistics, and the animal kingdom. She advocated for a combination of collectivism and individualism within society, allowing for a peaceful coexistence of the two (Nexus Lecture, 3). In her book, she argues that, over time, “natural trends of individuation and socialization will change the sex balance and produce superior women, men’s true equals. […] As the contrast between group and individual will disappear […] so will the contrast between female and male” (Ascent of Woman, 224). EMB firmly believed in the transformative power of laws and customs that advance women’s freedom. She saw these not as concessions of chivalry or tolerance but as anticipations of the future state of humankind. These laws and customs, she argued, help society move towards a more balanced gender state, a belief that is reflected in her work and writings (Nexus Lecture, 20):

“I believe that the new emphasis on community and on cooperation, coupled with technological developments, will also enhance a new gender balance.”

However, it is important to note that EMB’s feminist aspirations did not align with other feminist claims and positions of her time, particularly Second Wave Feminism. For example, some argued that EMB was not a feminist at all since “Ascent of Woman” discusses conforming to male expectations and gaining acceptance from men (Meyer, 44, Ascent of Woman, 221). Incidentally, this aligns with EMB’s own position towards her book as expressed in a 1951 letter to her husband, in which she emphasized that “the book is not feminist at all” (Meyer, 44). Indeed, EMB argued that a woman’s primary role was linked to the household, including caring for the children. Only after fulfilling this duty, typically around the age of forty, should a woman be taught by older and wiser men, thereby reaching a higher level of wisdom (Ascent of Woman, 209 f). Moreover, EMB did not share her peers’ position that sensitivity towards language was necessary. She thus stuck to “mankind” instead of choosing the more inclusive notion of “humankind” (Holzer, 163).

Collectivism in the law of the sea legacy

Whether labeled as cautiously feminist tendencies shaped by her personal experiences or not, EMB’s beliefs about femininity influenced her later contributions to the UNCLOS and beyond, in her environmentalist and socialist humanist ideology (Nexus Lecture, 9). Inspired by UN ambassador Arvid Pardo’s speech on 1^st November 1967, in which he proposed a common heritage of mankind (CHM) principle transcending “both sovereignty and freedom”, EMB started her work on the law of the sea as a fellow at the “Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions” in California (Nexus Lecture, 11-12). In 1970, EMB joined the “Club of Rome” as its first female member and, in 1972, founded the “International Ocean Institute” (IOI) with the help of Arvid Pardo. The IOI held annual conferences on the law of the sea (so-called “Pacem in Maribus (PIM) Conferences”) between 1970-2013 that greatly influenced the development of the UNCLOS, especially during the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (Nexus Lecture, 12-13). The IOI could be described as EMB’s “most enduring and endearing legacy”, with the Ocean Yearbook as the IOI’s leading publication (Mallia and Testa, 114). The IOI’s training programs are a lasting contribution to capacity building in ocean governance, the eradication of poverty, and the promotion of gender equality, with a focus on developing countries, youth, and women (Mallia and Testa, 115-117). These training programs mirror one of EMB’s central convictions: that the root cause of an absence of peace and justice lies in social and economic inequity (Nexus Lecture, 8). One of her heartfelt aims was thus to achieve equality in spite of colonialism’s legacy and against all odds, with an interdisciplinary and community-based co-management approach that respected and valued traditional forms of governance stemming from non-Western contexts (Nexus Lecture, 16). Thus, EMB stressed that the

“over-reliance on the ‘market’ and market-driven globalization, privatization and deregulation are enhancing competition rather than cooperation, individual power struggle rather than commitment to the community, short-term profit rather than long-term durability.” (Nexus Lecture, 5-6)

EMB’s main contribution, however, remains the introduction of the CHM principle to the seabed and the ocean floor beyond national jurisdiction, particularly in Art. 136 UNCLOS and further defined in UNCLOS Part XI on The Area (Nexus Lecture, 9). Though she was generally satisfied with the UNCLOS drafting processes, she took issue with the fact that the CHM principle was restricted to non-living resources, thereby excluding living and marine genetic resources. She thus advocated for a revision of Art. 133 UNCLOS (Mann Borgese). Although Art. 133 UNCLOS has yet to be revised, EMB’s aim to extend the CHM principle to living and marine genetic resources reverberated in legal thought. After some initial controversy surrounding the inclusion of the CHM principle (Mallia and Testa, 112), Art. 7(b) of the Agreement under the UNCLOS on the Conversation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) now enshrines the CHM principle as a guiding principle to achieve the BBNJ’s objectives of “ensur[ing] the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, for the present and in the long term, through effective implementation of the relevant provisions of the Convention and further international cooperation and coordination” (Art. 2 BBNJ). A major win post-mortem – not only for EMB, but also for humanity.

Elisabeth Mann Borgese

Mother of the Oceans

A woman devoted to her husband

Emancipation from the household

Collectivism in the law of the sea legacy

Further readings and sources:

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