Statement by Amb. Mary Beth West to the House Committee on Resources

Thank you for the opportunity to share the Department of State’s views on the international aspects of the legislation being considered today. Two of the statutes that would be amended by the Act under discussion implement key international fisheries conservation and management agreements: the Atlantic Tunas Convention Act of 1975, which implements the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, and the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Convention Act of 1995, which implements the Convention on Future Multilateral Cooperation in the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries.

Almost 10 years ago in Rio, the international community agreed on the need to address the increasingly dire condition of the world’s fishery resources. From that impetus came several new global instruments, including the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Compliance Agreement and Code of Conduct, and the UN Fish Stocks Agreement, as well as a recognition that existing regional fisheries organizations had to strengthen their mandates to conserve and rebuild dwindling resources. Several organizations took inspiration from those instruments to adopt creative and effective tools to address the problems of overfishing and illegal fishing. In particular, ICCAT (the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas) and NAFO (the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization) have each set precedents among other organizations by incorporating the principles of the Compliance Agreement and Fish Stocks Agreement into rules governing member compliance and non-member fishing.

The United States has been a member of ICCAT since 1967, and has worked actively within the organization to protect U.S. access to the high-value stocks the commission manages, and to encourage long-term sustainable management of the stocks managed by ICCAT. Under U.S. leadership, ICCAT has adopted ground-breaking rebuilding plans for two of the most overfished (and valuable) stocks in the Atlantic. And the Commission is in the middle of an exercise to establish comprehensive criteria to allow access to allocations for all members in a transparent and fair way. One of the major problems being faced by ICCAT is illegal fishing. As a result, in recent years ICCAT adopted measures providing for multilateral trade measures against those -- both member and non-member alike -- who overfish ICCAT species. Continued U.S. involvement in the organization will be critical to ensuring its future success, and we therefore recommend the reauthorization of the Atlantic Tunas Convention Act to allow this.

By contrast, the United States has participated in NAFO for only the past 5 years. However, we have also taken an active role in guiding this organization to adopt rules and management measures consistent with international law. Most of the stocks managed by NAFO have been under fishing moratoria for the past several years, and we have therefore received only limited allocations of NAFO stocks. The absence of extensive high-seas fisheries has instead allowed NAFO to focus on adopting comprehensive measures to address illegal fishing in the Convention Area, and to implement provisions to allow for greater transparency in the organization. These measures have set important precedents for other organizations and have helped to build credibility for conservation-based fisheries management. We are pleased, too, that in recent years the United States has received new allocations of NAFO-managed stocks and hope to work within the organization to build sufficient quota rights so that fishing these stocks will become economically feasible. Much remains to be done to restore the fish stocks in the Northwest Atlantic; in the meantime, we have an important role to play. Therefore, we also support reauthorization of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Convention Act of 1995.

Mr. Chairman, reauthorization of both of these Acts will allow the United States to continue its role as an important voice for conservation and cooperative management of key Atlantic fish stocks.  Thank you very much.