Governance of high seas fisheries

Elizabeth R. DeSombre

Chapter 7 in A Research Agenda for Sustainable Ocean Governance, 2025, pp 71-82 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: High seas fisheries are difficult to manage, even though everyone who relies on these fish should have an incentive to use them sustainably. Structural aspects of the environmental problem—the need to sacrifice in the short term for long-term benefits, collective action problems—combine with an international system in which states may choose to join management organizations or not, and ship owners can decide where to register their vessels, making fisheries governance challenging. The framework for managing fisheries on the high seas is underpinned by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (and its most recent Treaty on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdictions associate agreement). Most of the governance is done by many different regional fisheries management organisations, groups of states that make management decisions about specific species in each region. Newer approaches, like marine protected areas, and more radical suggestions for how to manage existing overfishing, offer creative new possibilities. For scholars, this patchwork of governance approaches presents research opportunities.

Keywords: Fisheries; UNCLOS; RFMO; Management; High Seas; BBNJ (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035325740
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035325757.00017 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:22995_7

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().