Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks Agreement
The Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks Agreement is an international treaty addressing the management and conservation of fish species that migrate across national boundaries and exclusive economic zones. Established in response to the alarming decline of fish populations reported by several coastal nations in the late 1980s, particularly in Scandinavia, the treaty arose from recognition that these resources could not be effectively managed by individual nations alone. The agreement emphasizes cooperative governance of marine resources and sets minimum international standards for the conservation and management of straddling and highly migratory fish stocks.
It aims to address issues such as overfishing and marine biodiversity loss while promoting sustainable fishing practices. The framework requires regular reviews based on migratory data, regulates the tonnage of discards to minimize pollution, and allows member states to inspect vessels suspected of violating conservation measures. Adopted in 1995, the agreement has garnered support from numerous nations, reflecting a shared commitment to the sustainable use of ocean resources. This collaborative approach underscores the importance of viewing the seas as a common resource that necessitates collective action to ensure both ecological health and economic viability.
Subject Terms
Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks Agreement
- DATE: Signed December 4, 1995; in force December 11, 2001
To promote long-term conservation, the United Nations’ Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks Agreement established principles for the conservation and management of fish stocks in heavily fished (and hence dwindling) species whose migratory patterns conflict with established international borders of individual nations—that is, beyond zones of protected economic activity in so-called regional bodies of water. The protocol established that such management be based on scientific information rather than political or economic considerations, and that states must cooperate to ensure conservation of fish populations on the high seas.
Background
Unlike land animals and birds trapped for economic use in which monitoring migratory patterns is fairly standard—as they are set by reliable parameters: urban centers, food availability, weather, topography, competition for the food supply, and available water systems—tracking and monitoring deep-sea fish upon which the economies of coastal nations often rest poses a far more difficult challenge. These fish species—most prominently herring, mackerel, redfish, pollock, sharks, halibut, tuna, flounder, swordfish, and perch—freely migrate in open seas across the exclusive economic zones that extend up to international waters as defined by long-standing treaties and alliances. Because, as they feed and spawn, these fish do not respect such borders (hence the term “straddling”), the issue became a matter for the United Nations when, in the late 1980s, fishing industries in a number of prominent coastal member-states—most notably in Scandinavia—began reporting precipitous declines in the available populations of such fish. Conservation was the only reasonable approach, but it would require an unprecedented level of agreement among nations that were essentially in economic competition for these fish. More problematic, given the fragile jurisdictional authority granted to the United Nations, the mechanism for enforcing any restrictions would necessarily rest ultimately on a kind of honor system among the flag nations.
The framework for an agreement to regulate the catch of migratory deep-sea species was formally introduced at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Over the following several years, drafts of the agreement emerged from tireless shuttle diplomacy; these drafts found the traditional methods for restricting fishing activity, including having flag nations tax vessel licensing or restrict catching and trapping techniques, unsuitable and even counterproductive. These methods were seen as punitive to the fishing industry and as lacking the broad vision necessary to address a problem that industry experts argued was already pressing. Numerous UN commissions and independent scientific research findings argued the world’s fishing fleets were losing close to twenty billion dollars annually because of depleted fish stocks and poor species management. The United Nations realized that any protocol for addressing the problem of fish-stock management across flag state zones had to address the threat such depletion presented to the global community in order to encourage flag states to recognize that the sea was a shared resource and that cooperation was the only feasible way to proceed.
Provisions
The approach that emerged over the three years of the treaty’s evolution was holistic—that is, it addressed the widest possible issues of high-sea environmentalism, with a vision of the ocean and the seas as a cooperative that may be resilient but could not repair the damage from decades of careless fishing.
The treaty, as it was proposed for ratification in 1995, promoted economic order in the oceans through the effective management and conservation of high-seas resources by establishing, among other things, detailed minimum international standards for the conservation and management of straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks. These standards were to be reviewed regularly according to relevant migratory and tracking data. The agreement regulated the tonnage of dead discards (fish too small to harvest) as a way to address ocean pollution and specified an end to overfishing as a way to protect marine biodiversity. The treaty did not detail exactly how such standards would be managed, nor did it address the thorny issue of international fishing conglomerates whose economic reach extended beyond single nations. However, the agreement recognized the right of states within the relevant region to board and inspect vessels from other states suspected of violating conservation measures.
Impact on Resource Use
The Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks Agreement provided a groundbreaking framework that indicated the resolve of the signatory states to cooperate to ensure the industry’s continued existence. Adopted in August 1995, and opened for signature in December 1995, the treaty had been signed by fifty-nine member states and entities as of 2009. On November 11, 2001, with the accession of the island of Malta, the thirty-nation requirement for ratification was met. One month later, the agreement went into effect.
Bibliography
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