By the end of the 20^th Century, marine science had identified an extinction crisis in the World Ocean, that connected ensemble of the major oceanic basins (Jackson, 2008), along with a series of malign structural changes to the ocean through absorption of heat, CO2, synthetic chemicals, plastic, and inland sewage and nitrogen that threaten the sustainability of oceanic life (Miles, 2009).  Threats to the World Ocean are not self-contained, and therefore threaten the very sustainability of the world’s civilizations because the ocean planetary heat balance, oxygen production, 90% of the world’s habitat, food, and other global critical life supports for all societies regardless of their shoreline. Threats to the World Ocean are mainly human-caused, thus it is crucial to understand how and why marine-related human decisions are guided. Elsewhere (Lobo and Jacques 2017) we have used quantitative content analysis of the State of the World’s Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA) reports published by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) from 1995-2016 to demonstrate that a non-codified regime governs the ocean, the World Ocean Regime (WOR).  A regime is a set of norms and expectations that direct behavior, and the norms for the WOR is economistic, and geared towards sheer production volume and growth. This is decidedly contrary to the minimum requirements of sustainability: social justice and social welfare, economic provision, and ecological integrity, to say nothing of good governance, science, adaptability, and other preconditions for the human prospect (see for example, Author 2015; Kanninen, 2013; Bryan Norton, 1992; Brian Norton, 2005; Orr, 2002; Thiele, 2011). However, when conducting content analysis, a common assumption is that the use and context of words remain the same over time. This, however, is merely a convenience and is often not a valid assumption. This paper takes the opportunity to delve into the context and meaning of a key concept to global environmental politics---sustainability—through the lens of some of the most important global environmental documents regularly published but which have not been heavily scrutinized. The SOFIA reports are a uniquely interesting set of records that systematically describe the conditions of global fisheries—and theoretically everything that can affect fisheries like climate variability, pollution, overharvesting, coastal development, invasive species, etc…. The SOFIA reports are among the most important documents to marine politics and management that are written every two years with UN deliberative process that should be fairly consistent over time. Thus, examining how a central concept to the World Ocean is used over time should tell us a great deal about paradigmatic principles of behavior and governance of a critical component of global environmental politics.