Transboundary Fisheries Management

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea created the exclusive economic zone regime, which makes more than 90 per cent of the world’s commercial fish stocks under the national jurisdiction of coastal States. The biological characteristics of fish demonstrate that the long-term sustainability of fisheries can only be achieved through cooperation and coordination among States, especially for the conservation of transboundary fish stocks. However, the ocean may have more than 1,500 transboundary fish stocks, only a limited number are subjected to effective cooperative management. This article provides an overview of the international legal framework on transboundary fisheries and China’s practice on shared stocks and distant water fisheries, and argues that current bilateral fisheries agreements are not sufficient enough to manage transboundary fish stocks and China still has much to do on regulating distant water fisheries.

Transboundary Fisheries Management

Malaysia’s unique geographical position, straddling across several seas within the Indian and Pacific Oceans, allows her to play an important role within the set of regional, sub-regional and bilateral arrangements for transboundary fisheries management in the Indo-Pacific theatre. This article first charts and then examines Malaysia’s participation within these fisheries management initiatives, beginning from the overarching international legal frameworks of unclos and the Fish Stocks Agreement, through the formal and informal regional and sub-regional fisheries management organizations, and finally, to bilateral arrangements for fisheries co-operation. Along the way, Malaysia’s policy, legal and institutional capacity, as well as her readiness to perform the role(s) required of her, in relation to regional, sub-regional, and bilateral fisheries management issues, are critically assessed.

Resource allocation in transboundary tuna fisheries: A global analysis

Resource allocation is a fundamental and challenging component of common pool resource governance, particularly transboundary fisheries. We highlight the growing importance of allocation in fisheries governance, comparing approaches of the five tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (tRFMOs). We find all tRFMOs except one have defined resources for allocation and outlined principles to guide allocation based on equity, citizenship, and legitimacy. However, all fall short of applying these principles in assigning fish resources. Most tRFMOs rely on historical catch or effort, while equity principles rarely determine dedicated rights. Further, the current system of annual negotiations reduces certainty, trust, and transparency, counteracting many benefits asserted by rights-based management proponents. We suggest one means of gaining traction may be to shift conversations from allocative rights toward weighting of principles already identified by most tRFMOs. Incorporating principles into resource allocation remains a major opportunity, with important implications for current and future access to fish.

Illuminating dark fishing fleets in North Korea

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing threatens resource sustainability and equity. A major challenge with such activity is that most fishing vessels do not broadcast their positions and are “dark” in public monitoring systems. Combining four satellite technologies, we identify widespread illegal fishing by dark fleets in the waters between the Koreas, Japan, and Russia. We find >900 vessels of Chinese origin in 2017 and >700 in 2018 fished illegally in North Korean waters, catching an estimated amount of Todarodes pacificus approximating that of Japan and South Korea combined (>164,000 metric tons worth >$440 million). We further find ~3000 small-scale North Korean vessels fished, mostly illegally, in Russian waters. These results can inform independent oversight of transboundary fisheries and foreshadow a new era in satellite monitoring of fisheries.