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The world’s oceans are currently shaped by two diverging trends: unprecedented efforts to preserve marine ecosystems, and an accelerating exploitation of ocean resources. As these contradicting trends proliferate, interactions between diverse stakeholders and policies lead to incompatibilities in shared ocean space and resources, increasing tensions and the risk for conflict. Neoliberal rationales within ocean governance frameworks add a further factor of uncertainty as power and economic growth are prioritized over environmental sustainability. Simultaneously, the geopolitical order at sea is undergoing a historic transformation. After two centuries largely characterized by maritime hegemony, power dynamics on the world’s oceans are shifting toward a multipolar order, which raises urgent questions about the prospects for sustainable ocean governance. This thesis therefore investigates whether and how marine resource conflicts and geopolitical change can undermine the prospects for sustainable ocean governance. Four papers investigate different developments in the context of ocean preservation and exploitation and geopolitical change. Paper I introduces process tracing as a methodological tool for the analysis of marine resource conflicts. This method facilitates the investigation of causal mechanisms that generate conflicts over marine resources. Paper II then applies process tracing to an interest conflict over pelagic sharks in the North Atlantic, where marine tourism in the Azores relies on the presence of sharks, while the same species are simultaneously caught by industrial longline fisheries on the High Seas. Paper III examines how fisheries policies and marine conservation initiatives affect the livelihoods of small-scale fisheries in the Azores, showing how sustainability measures can have socio-economic impacts. Zooming out, Paper IV presents a narrative systematic literature review of geopolitical developments on the global oceans, engaging with selected literature via four different themes to explore what the observed developments imply for sustainable ocean governance. Together, these studies examine transformations currently shaping the ocean biosphere: the emergence of new types of conflicts; the complexities of balancing conservation and resource use; and the reconfiguration of geopolitical dynamics at sea. In doing so, the thesis highlights key environmental, social and political challenges for achieving sustainable ocean governance in an evolving global context and at different spatial scales.