Principles and issues of cooperation. Potential areas of cooperation for benefits to all participants
96. The papers considered under this Agenda item were:
AC/9: Competences of the European Economic Community in the Field of Fisheries, by R. SimonnetAC/20: Forum Fisheries Agency: Relevant Agreements in FFA Countries AC/16: Eastern Pacific Ocean Tuna Fishing
AC/18: Development of Living Resources and International Cooperation, by J.S. Campbell
97. Mr. Weiss introduced the paper on the EEC experience. He noted that the EEC has completely harmonized fisheries conditions because of and pursuant to the EEC's overall role as a regional body. The EEC acts, in effect, like a single coastal State managing one combined zone on behalf of the members of the community. Mr. Weiss noted that for this reason the EEC is not really an example of regional cooperation between individual States regarding their individual zones. EEC's laws regarding fisheries pre-empt any EEC individual member's laws; the EEC laws are enforced by individual member States.
98. Mr. Clark presented the following documents:
(a) Forum Fisheries Agency Convention (FFA)
(b) Nauru Agreement
(c) FFC Decisions
99. Mr. Clark explained that these documents were examples of regional cooperation in the Pacific (see also AC/7 re Joint Fee Systems) and reflected many of the underlying principles in regional cooperation among coastal States. In the South Pacific the main fishery is highly migratory tuna and regional cooperation is a necessity because the stocks are shared.
100. The FFA Convention recognized the member States' common interests in fisheries and the need for cooperation in management and conservation among themselves and, thereafter, with distant-water fishing nations. The FFA Convention created and set out the functions of the FFA in order to pursue these objectives.
101. Mr. Clark noted that cooperation in the FFA region had developed in recent years as follows: First, the FFA States shared data and information. Then they realized that further benefits would derive from harmonization of laws and access conditions. From this perception emerged the Nauru Agreement, an arrangement among certain coastal States' having major tuna fisheries in the South Pacific. The Nauru Agreement calls for certain minimum, uniform, conditions of access to be set in all States. It is expected that benefits to the coastal States as well as the fishing States would increase by standardizing such conditions. A series of implementing arrangements to the Nauru Agreement will set out in detail these standardized conditions. Subsequently, the measures agreed by those countries participating in the Nauru Agreement were largely taken up by a wider grouping of South Pacific States, as set out in the decisions of the South Pacific Forum Fisheries Committee. Like the Nauru Agreement, these decisions called for the establishment of uniform access conditions including reporting procedures, log book formats, vessel identification, observers and measures for facilitating compliance control such as the Regional Register. For the future, the States of the region were looking at the prospects for regional access and fee systems for groupings of coastal States. Such arrangements appeared to offer potentially large gains, but the constraints to their implementation were substantial.
102. Mr. Rodriguez presented the Eastern Pacific Ocean Tuna Fishing Agreements as follows; The history of the tuna fishery in the Eastern Pacific dictated the need to manage the resources and, thus, the coastal States and relevant distant-water fishing States agreed among themselves regarding fees and conservation measures. The Eastern Pacific Agreement has created a Council to manage licensing in the affected area. Use of the Council as a management decision-maker is intended to avoid possible political regional problems and offers opportunities for long-term policy decisions on a regional basis. The Agreement prohibits any action by members to embargo fish products of the other members and assures mutual access to markets. In short, the Agreement creates a platform for conservation measures and embodies the concept of regional access.
103. The protocol to the Agreement prescribes fees at $60 per net register ton per vessel per year. The Agreement is open for accession by other States and the fee will correspondingly increase but not to exceed $100 per net registered ton.
104. Mr. Lavender reviewed progress in regional cooperation in the Lesser Antilles. He noted that the Charter establishing the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States is the basis for this cooperation and is the vehicle through which FAO is assisting in harmonization efforts. He noted that such regional cooperation not only is of benefit with regard to access but also provides the basis for possible sub-regional development in fisheries by the coastal States themselves. However, at this point, effort is limited to harmonization of legislation regarding fisheries.
105. Mr. Campbell reviewed a paper he had written in 1976 and prior to the 200-mile EEZ. The paper dealt with the Pacific basin emphasizing the need for cooperation in fisheries and related trade. He said this paper emphasized shared responsibility over the fishery between coastal States and DWFS. But since 1976 and in the wake of 200-mile EEZs, there is an atmosphere of some distrust and friction between these sets of interests. Nonetheless, the goal of cooperation remains necessary and important and should be pursued in the South Pacific.
Discussion
106. Discussion then took place on the various levels at which cooperation might take place, i.e., bilateral, regional and world-wide.
107. At the bilateral level the Argentine/Uruguay Treaty in particular was examined as a good example of such cooperation. The Treaty establishes a common fishery zone. National allocations are made by species on the basis of the proportion of the fish resources contributed by each party. This contribution is evaluated both on economic and scientific criteria. The Treaty also provides that each Party can authorize third countries to fish in its national waters in the Common Zone within the limits of its own allocation. In other words the catch of these third country vessels is to be deducted from the authorizing Party's own national allocation. However, up till now, neither of the Parties to the Treaty has issued any such authorization.
108. At the regional level, it was recognized that a two-tier system of cooperation might be appropriate. The first involved cooperation among the coastal States of a region. The South Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency was examined as an example. This initially provided a vehicle for sharing data among the participating coastal States and then as a focus for the harmonization and coordination of their respective fisheries regimes with attendant benefits to both those States and the distant-water fishing States operating in that region, e.g., better information and bargaining position for the coastal States, reduction in compliance control costs, more effective resource management, facilitating access to distant-water fishing States and providing for similar conditions of access over a wide range of zones. Constraints to such cooperation could occur where there were differing levels of development among the coastal States and differing national fisheries objectives. Difficulties may also be occasioned by scarcity of funds. The type and extent of the fishery would also dictate the level and need for such cooperation.
109. The second tier of regional cooperation concerns the degree of detailed information required in access conditions, and the likely substantial costs to both the coastal States and the distant-water fishing States operating in that region. It was felt that one of the needs is to provide an unbiased forum for the exchange of scientific and economic information outside of the negotiating context. This, by giving a mutually accepted information base, could lead to a greater degree of trust between the parties which, in turn, can lead to a simplification of conditions of access, breaking the vicious circle which the meeting had previously considered. The need for such cooperation was particularly emphasized with respect to highly migratory species.
110. It was recognized that regional cooperation might appropriately be conducted through different organizations within the same region which exist for different but complementary purposes, e.g., Forum Fisheries Agency and the South Pacific Commission in the South Pacific and the International Baltic Sea Fisheries Convention and ICES in the Baltic.
111. The meeting confirmed the benefits to be obtained, in many cases, through regional cooperation, with particular emphasis on data exchange, and the more effective utilization of sometimes limited manpower resources. The Consultation specifically recognized that considerable benefits could be obtained from harmonization of access conditions on a regional basis for the reasons noted above, and considered that such regional harmonization should be actively encouraged.
112. On the world-wide level, it was agreed that meetings such as the present Consultation and the forthcoming World Fisheries Conference provide a useful forums in which the genuine interests of fishing and coastal States can be identified. This allows the real potentials for cooperation at all levels to be brought into sharper focus.
