The Management of High Seas Fisheries. Resources and the Implementation of the U.N. Fish Stocks Agreement of 1995

From 1993 to 1995, the United Nations Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks, addressed a worldwide fisheries management crisis, focussed on straddling and highly migratory fish stocks. The Conference brought forth the U.N. Fish Stocks Agreement, which became available for signing in December, 1995. At the end of 2001, the Agreement achieved the status of international treaty law. During the intervening six years, the Agreement had already come to serve as a framework for an increasing number of regimes. Examples, which are explored in this paper, are provided by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (NAFO), Norwegian spring spawning herring resource, and Atlantic bluefin tuna. The fact that the Agreement has come into force, and the fact that the Agreement, had been serving as a framework for an increasing number of cooperative resource management regimes, does not ensure the Agreement's viability over the long run. This paper will, after reviewing the history underlying the U.N. Fish Stocks Conference, 1993-1995, and the resource management crisis, which provided the raison d'être of the Conference, attempt to assess, from an economist's standpoint, the long-term viability of the Agreement.