The State Department web site below is a permanent electronic archive of information released prior to January 20, 2001.  Please see www.state.gov for material released since President George W. Bush took office on that date.  This site is not updated so external links may no longer function.  Contact us with any questions about finding information. NOTE: External links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views contained therein.

R. Tucker Scully Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oceans, Fisheries, and Space Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs U.S. Department of State Remarks at Fifth North Pacific Rim Fisheries Conference Anchorage, Alaska, December 1, 1999

"International Perspectives Upon Fisheries Policy"

It is a great pleasure for me to be here -- to visit this wonderful state, to see friends, old and new, and to have the opportunity to address this distinguished group.

Increasingly, the challenges of achieving sustainable fisheries are being cast as global issues requiring global solutions. Perhaps a better characterization of these challenges is that they are ubiquitous. Challenges such as those posed by over-capacity, by-catch of non-target species, by illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, are common to most if not all regions of the world. At the same time, their solution may require differing approaches depending on the region concerned.

This distinction, to my mind, is important because concrete responses to these challenges will ultimately need to be implemented at the national level and, additionally, in areas such as the North Pacific, through regional cooperation. Action, thus, is required at all levels: at the global level, strengthening and elaborating the general legal obligations to conserve and manage fisheries; and at the national and regional level, translating these obligations into measures appropriate to the specific geographic and biological/ecological circumstances.

With these points in mind, I would like to touch upon ongoing efforts at the global level and upon several examples of innovative efforts to translate general legal obligations into concrete measures at the regional level.

LOS Convention: The basic obligations of nations to conserve fish, as well as international consensus on the nature and extent of their authority to manage fisheries, are set forth in the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Though -- lamentably -- the U.S. is not yet a party to the LOS Convention, we support and recognize it as reflecting international law and our fisheries legislation and practice are consistent with it. In the past decade, two new treaties have been negotiated designed to build upon the LOS Convention's provisions on fisheries.

UN Fish Stocks Agreement: The first is the 1995 Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks. The Agreement sets forth principles for countries and regional fisheries organizations to sustainably manage highly migratory and straddling fish stocks. These principles address compliance and enforcement, fishing by non-members of a regional fisheries management organization, new entrants into a fishery, dispute settlement, precautionary management based on the best available science, and transparency in decision making.

Ratifications by thirty nations are necessary to bring the Agreement into force. To date, twenty-four nations, including the United States, have done so. The entry into force of the UN Fish Stocks Agreement is an important priority for the U.S.

FAO Compliance Agreement: The second is the 1993 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Agreement to Promote Compliance with International Conservation and Management Measures by Fishing Vessels on the High Seas (the Compliance Agreement). The Compliance Agreement, again building upon the LOS Convention, sets forth a broad range of obligations for parties whose fishing vessels operate on the high seas, including the obligation to ensure that such vessels do not undermine international fishery conservation and management measures. The Agreement will also create, through FAO, something akin to an international registry of high seas fishing vessels -- a potentially powerful tool in monitoring fishing on the high seas.

Ratifications by twenty-five are necessary to bring the Agreement into force. To date, fourteen nations, including the U.S., have done so. Entry into force of the Compliance Agreement is also an important priority for the U.S.

In addition, there has been a significant effort, centered largely in FAO, to develop agreed guidelines and action plans to identify steps to facilitate and promote implementation of the international legal obligations to conserve fish, as well as steps to identify emerging issues requiring priority attention. These include: the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, as well as international plans of action to deal with seabird mortality in longline fisheries, conservation and management of shark species, and excess capacity in the world's fishing fleet. The FAO is also pursuing another initiative to crack down on illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing activities.

The FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, adopted in 1996, sets forth recommended practices and standards aimed at promoting sustainable fisheries and aquaculture. The Code addresses the conservation, management and development of fisheries, as well as the processing and marketing of fish and fish products. It is not only directed at governments, but also at all of those engaged in these activities, including individual fishermen, fishing entities, and organizations involved in fisheries matters, regional, sub-regional and global and inter-governmental and non-governmental.

International plans of action on seabird by-catch, on sharks and on excess capacity were adopted by the FAO Committee on Fisheries earlier this year. With respect to seabirds, the plan of action recognizes that by-catch in longline fisheries poses a serious threat to a number of species, particularly albatrosses and some petrels species. It identifies measures and practices that may be taken to avoid seabird by-catch in longline fisheries and calls upon nations with longline fleets to take steps to assess interactions with seabirds in their fisheries and, where needed, to develop national plans of action. The recommendations for avoiding seabird mortality draw heavily in the first instance upon innovative work undertaken by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, but also in the North Pacific halibut fishery.

With respect to sharks, the plan of action responds to growing evidence that shark populations, generally characterized by low rates of productivity, are subject to unsustainable harvesting pressure in various parts of the world. It calls for development of national shark conservation plans and identifies recommended elements for such plans for nations with significant populations within their EEZs and/or whose vessels harvest sharks on the high seas.

The third international plan of action addresses excess fishing capacity and recommends initiation of a process aimed at reducing the capacity of the world's fishing fleets. This complex and difficult task involves two tracks: the first is the application of a set of recommended practices to enable nations and regional fisheries organizations to assess and manage fishing capacity; the second is consideration, including within the World Trade Organization, of the relationship of subsidies to excess capacity with the aim of identifying and eliminating subsidies that contribute to over-capacity and over-fishing.

Having touched briefly on efforts at the global level to respond or identify responses to emerging challenges to sustainable fisheries, I would like to touch on what I hope are relevant examples of innovative responses at the bilateral and regional levels -- both drawn from or hopefully relevant to the North Pacific Region.

Clearly, one of the most positive developments in recent months was the announcement by U.S. and Canadian negotiators that they had reached agreement on a ten-year comprehensive Pacific salmon agreement. It would go far beyond the scope of these remarks to do justice to the significance of this breakthrough and even more to the challenges that lie ahead in implementing this agreement. Suffice it to say that we are committed to doing everything in our power to meet those challenges.

But for present purposes, I would emphasize two elements of the 1999 agreement on Pacific salmon: first, the provision for abundance based management of the salmon fisheries, designed to ensure conservation in the face of as yet not fully understood fluctuations in salmon populations; and second, concrete commitment to restoration and maintenance of the habitat essential for spawning and nurturing of such populations. It seems to me that this represents real world implementation of the concept of precautionary fisheries management as articulated in the UN Fish Stocks Agreement and other global instruments.

The need to develop regional arrangements to provide for effective conservation and management of straddling stocks and highly migratory species is a primary focus of the UN Fish Stocks Agreement. There have been two efforts -- one completed and one ongoing -- to respond to this need that directly affect to the North Pacific region. The first is the 1994 Convention for the Conservation and Management of the Pollock Resources of the Central Bering Sea. The "Donut Hole" agreement, as it is known, covers that area of the Bering Sea beyond the U.S. and Russian EEZs and sets forth obligations to conserve the pollock populations found there, pollock that are straddling stocks for both the U.S. and Russia. The Donut Hole agreement represents an interesting example of the intersection of regional and global initiatives. While, in one sense, it reflects a realization of the concepts of the UN Fish Stock Agreement; its negotiation took place during the same time frame as the UN Agreement and may have influenced the provisions of the global agreement more than the other way around.

The Donut Hole agreement has been in force for four years now and pressures grow from the side of distant water fishing nations to permit pollock fishing in the central Bering Sea. It is important to emphasize that any action on this matter must be clearly supported by sound scientific data and information. To date, such scientific evidence shows that the biomass of pollock is still not large enough to support a resumption of fishing, despite a moratorium on fishing that has been in effect for seven years.

The second effort is the ongoing Multilateral High Level Conference (MHLC) on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. The MHLC negotiation, that held its fifth session in September, represents an opportunity to conclude a regional fisheries convention for important fish stocks before they have been significantly affected by harvesting pressure. The negotiation seeks to translate the principles and objectives of the UN Fish Stock Agreement into a binding regional agreement.

Major progress has been achieved in the MHLC talks and we are hopeful that the Convention will be concluded by mid-2000. For the purpose of these remarks, I would underline two aspects of the emerging agreement. First, it is generally recognized that its area should cover the full range of the fish populations. This means that significant areas north of the equator would be included up to at least 20 degrees North Latitude. There appears to be support, including from the U.S., for establishing a North Pacific committee to provide recommendations for this area. Second, the future effectiveness of the agreement will be related to ensuring that all major fishing entities active in the region are subject to the conservation and management system. This will mean finding a way to provide for the full participation of Chinese Taipei.

Another instance of the intersection of action at the regional and global level is the effort to implement the prohibition on high seas salmon fishing through the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission (NPAFC). The members of NPAFC have taken coordinated steps to encourage two nations of the region -- the People's Republic of China and the Republic of Korea -- to become full members of NPAFC in part to promote their full involvement in ensuring the effectiveness of the prohibition.

While these steps have not yet been successful, bilateral cooperation between the U.S. and China in the context of a global undertaking has contributed significantly to NPAFC's objectives in this regard. Specifically, the U.S. and China have concluded a cooperative enforcement agreement under the aegis of the 1992 UN General Assembly resolution instituting a moratorium on the use of large-scale pelagic driftnets on the high seas. Implementation of the bilateral agreement has resulted in detection and enforcement action against illegal driftnet vessels engaged in take of high seas salmon.

Finally, I would like to turn to recent steps taken to deal with fishing activities that undermine the effectiveness of regional fishery conservation organizations -- what has become known as illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing. In this instance, "illegal" refers to fishing by a vessel of a Party to the agreement in a manner that violates the terms of the agreement or conservation measures adopted under it. "Unregulated" refers to fishing by a vessel of a non-Party in a manner that obstructs achievement of the purposes of the agreement or measures adopted under it. "Unreported" can refer to either, but is included in the concept to emphasize the fact that unreported catches undercut the ability to undertake the assessments of fish populations necessary for sound management.

IUU fishing typically targets high value species and has become a major problem for Atlantic bluefin tuna and swordfish in the area of ICCAT -- the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna -- and for Patagonian toothfish, marketed in the United States as Chilean sea bass, in the area of CCAMLR -- the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. The Members of both Commissions have developed innovative approaches to counter IUU fishing, approaches that seek to use trade or market access as a tool.

In 1994, ICCAT developed an action plan to deal with IUU fishing for bluefin tuna and has subsequently agreed upon such a plan for swordfish. In each instance, the plan provides for a process, including documentation of catch, for identifying non-Parties whose vessels are engaged in fishing activities that diminish the effectiveness of ICCAT conservation measures and for identifying Parties whose vessels are not complying with ICCAT conservation measures. Non-Parties or Parties so identified are accorded a one-year period to rectify the situation. If the situation is not rectified, the Commission will require ICCAT members to prohibit imports of bluefin tuna or swordfish products from the non-complying nation.

ICCAT has previously imposed such bans on imports of bluefin tuna from Belize, Honduras and Panama. At its recently concluded 1999 annual meeting, ICCAT, for the first time, authorized an import ban against a Party -- against Equatorial Guinea in respect of bluefin tuna; and imposed import bans upon two non-Parties -- Belize and Honduras -- in respect of swordfish.

CCAMLR, at its 1999 annual meeting that wound up last month, reached agreement on an innovative vessel-based catch documentation system for Patagonian toothfish and the other toothfish species found in Antarctic waters. Developing a system was complicated by the fact that Patagonian toothfish, while concentrated in the area covered by CCAMLR, may also be caught outside of the area. (In fact, one of the challenges facing CCAMLR, is the widespread practice of IUU vessels of harvesting toothfish in the CCAMLR area but portraying it as originating elsewhere.)

The CCAMLR catch documentation system is based on the requirement that each landing or transshipment of Dissostichus (toothfish) species generate a document that identifies where the catch was taken (specific areas within CCAMLR waters or FAO statistical area, if outside CCAMLR waters) and where the catch was landed or transshipped and its recipient. The specific elements of the CCAMLR system are:

i) CCAMLR Parties will require that each of their vessels complete a Dissostichus catch document and obtain flag State certification of the document on each occasion that it lands or transships toothfish, wherever landed or transshipped;

ii) CCAMLR Parties will require that any toothfish landed at its ports or transshipped to its vessels be accompanied by a Dissostichus catch document, completed by the vessel and certified by the flag State of the vessel, whether a Party or a non-Party to CCAMLR; and

iii) CCAMLR Parties will require that each shipment of toothfish imported into its territory be accompanied by the Dissositchus catch document or documents, certified by the exporting State, that account for all of the shipment

In conclusion, these remarks have attempted to highlight some benefits and opportunities for cooperation, coordination and communication on fisheries issues in the North Pacific region. I am reminded of the old slogan -- "think globally, act locally". The experience of the North Pacific, I believe, suggests an updated version -- "think globally, act locally and cooperate regionally".

[end of document]

|| Fisheries and Marine Conservation |
Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs |
U.S. Department of State | Disclaimers ||