Combating Illegal Fishing

This book gathers the proceedings of an OECD Workshop that took place in April 2004 in Paris, on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing -- a worldwide problem which is increasing in scale.

On June 17, 2014, the White House released a Presidential Memorandum entitled "Establishing a Comprehensive Framework to Combat Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing and Seafood Fraud." Among other actions, the Memorandum established a Presidential Task Force on Combating Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing and Seafood Fraud. The Task Force was directed to report to the President "recommendations for the implementation of a comprehensive framework of integrated programs to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and seafood fraud that emphasizes areas of greatest need." Those recommendations were provided to the President on December 18, 2014. There are 15 recommendations, which are broad in scope and call on agencies to take concrete and specific actions to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and seafood fraud throughout the seafood supply chain. This plan articulates the aggressive steps that federal agencies will take both domestically and internationally to implement the recommendations the Task Force made in December 2014. The plan identifies actions that will strengthen enforcement, create and expand partnerships with state and local governments, industry, and non-governmental organizations, and create a risk-based traceability program to track seafood from harvest to entry into U.S. commerce. The plan also highlights ways in which the United States will work with our foreign partners to strengthen international governance, enhance cooperation, and build capacity to combat IUU fishing and seafood fraud. This book addresses the recommendations made by the Task Force.

Analyses the concept of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and the international instruments which provide the legal and policy framework to combat IUU fishing. Palma, Tsamenyi and Edeson, University of Wollongong, Australia.

This publication contains the proceedings of an OECD workshop on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, held in April 2004 in Paris. IUU fishing is a worldwide problem which is increasing in scale, and effective strategies are required to deal with this issue in order to ensure the sustainability of the world's fisheries resources. The aim of the workshop was to examine the social and economic factors that drive it, as well as the costs and benefits of alternative strategies to address this often concealed, cross-border activity, with the aim of identifying new more effective methods to deal with it.

Essay from the year 2023 in the subject Law - Miscellaneous, grade: 2.0, Göteborg University (Rechtswissenschaften), course: Maritime Environmental Law, language: English, abstract: The impact of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing, shortly IUU fishing, has become an increased significance these days. The global community has already reached a critical point when is comes to global fish stocks. As of 2014, almost 30 % of the global fish stocks are considered to be in an overfished condition, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). 2018, the estimated number already increased up to 33.1 %. This emphasizes the urgency of actions combating IUU fishing. Since the 1990s, IUU fishing is a further growing issue for the community of international fisheries and thus, this behaviour is not a new issue in marine capture fisheries. According to estimations, the total value of current IUU fishing worldwide is between $ 10 bn and $ 23,5 bn annually which is a total amount between 11 and 26 million tonnes of fish. The first appearance of this term can be dated on 1997 to the 16th annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). The fisheriessector developed more and more in a commercial direction and thus got dominated by economic interests. By fading out all the problems and consequences of IUU fishing, large companies only focus on expanding their profit. This leads to different problems, especially regarding to the environment. One of the main problems is to extinguish certain fish stocks. The key word of is issue is biodiversity which plays a large role in this context. On a scientific view, there is a specific level which sets the optimum for reproduction of fish stocks. Overfishing means hereby that the reproduction is limited and in the worst case, it can lead to completely loosing types of fish. Not to overextend a certain amount of fishing, it is important to have control entities which sets the level of fishing to reach this optimum point. The challenge now is that unreported fishing cannot be taken into account of those calculations how much fishing can be practiced, so that it is very difficult to estimate the truly size of the fish stock. Unreported fishing thus leads because of bypassing those control entities to many problems. This challenges the whole system because it gets less concrete. Additionally, unregulated fishing itself can wipe out a species of fish, or at least limit the reproduction drastically.

IUU fishing undermines the economic and environmental sustainability of the fishing industry in the U.S. and globally. IUU fishing encompasses many illicit activities, including under-reporting the number of fish caught and using prohibited fishing gear. While the illicit nature of IUU fishing means its consequences can only be estimated, a recent study estimates catches from IUU fishing could cause global economic losses up to $50 billion annually. A variety of federal agencies coordinate with one another, as well as internationally, to address IUU fishing at sea. This report examines how the U.S. (1) works with other nations to address IUU fishing at sea, (2) identifies potential incidents of IUU fishing at sea, and (3) coordinates its interagency efforts to combat IUU fishing at sea and the extent to which selected efforts are consistent with leading collaboration practices. GAO is making one recommendation to the Department of Defense to determine whether it has the authority to continue Operation Junction Rain and, if not, seek the authority to do so.

The IOPA-IUU is a voluntary instrument that applies to all States and entities and to all fishers. Following the IPOA's introduction, the nature and scope of IUU fishing is addressed. This is followed by the IPOA's objective and principles and the implementation of measures to prevent, deter and eliminate IUU fishing. These measures focus on all State responsibilities, flag State responsibilities, coastal State measures, port State measures, internationally agreed market-related measures, research and regional fisheries management organizations. Special requirements of developing countries are then considered, followed by reporting requirements and the role of FAO.

This checklist aims to provide users who are the primary actors in implementing the obligations of States under international law, including officials of States and particularly developing States, with a comprehensive checklist in order to assess the level of conformity of the national legal framework with the relevant international legally binding and non-binding instruments relevant to prevent, deter and eliminate IUU fishing. Based on this checklist, the user should be able to assess whether each duty and responsibility is fully / partially / not found in the national legal framework, and to address any identified gaps.

Many illicit activities, such as using prohibited fishing gear, constitute IUU fishing. Such fishing undermines the economic and environmental sustainability of the fishing industry. The illicit nature of IUU fishing means that the size of the problem can be estimated only roughly. However, the U.S. International Trade Commission estimated that about 11 percent of the value of the nation’s approximately $22 billion in seafood imports in 2019 were derived from IUU fishing. and CBP efforts to combat imports of seafood caught through IUU fishing, as well as other relevant agency documents. GAO recommends that CBP work with NMFS to ensure that NMFS has timely access to information that it needs to combat imports of seafood caught through IUU fishing.

On 17 June 2014, the White House released a Presidential Memorandum entitled "Establishing a Comprehensive Framework to Combat Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing and Seafood Fraud." Among other actions, the Memorandum established a Presidential Task Force on Combating Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing and Seafood Fraud. The Task Force was directed to report to the President "recommendations for the implementation of a comprehensive framework of integrated programs to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and seafood fraud that emphasizes areas of greatest need." Those recommendations were provided to the President on December 18, 2014. There are 15 recommendations, which are broad in scope and call on agencies to take concrete and specific actions to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and seafood fraud throughout the seafood supply chain. This plan articulates the aggressive steps that federal agencies will take both domestically and internationally to implement the recommendations the Task Force made in December 2014. The plan identifies actions that will strengthen enforcement, create and expand partnerships with state and local governments, industry, and non-governmental organizations, and create a risk-based traceability program to track seafood from harvest to entry into U.S. commerce. The plan also highlights ways in which the United States will work with our foreign partners to strengthen international governance, enhance cooperation, and build capacity to combat IUU fishing and seafood fraud. This book addresses the recommendations made by the Task Force.