After being under negotiation since 2001, the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies was adopted in June 2022, and with enough countries ratifying it, it officially came into force on Monday, September 15.
Subsidies to fishing fleets are a key factor in the depletion of fish stocks around the world. Critics have long argued that they incentivise boats to catch fish faster than stocks can replenish, News.Az reports citing foreign media.
Around 35 percent of global fish stocks are overfished, compared to just 10 percent in 1974, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, and almost all stocks are fished at their maximum sustainable level.
The WTO deal, the first to address an environmental issue, is a “game changer”, according to Tristan Irschlinger, an expert on the issue at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, a Canada-based think tank.
“States will no longer implement their subsidy policies in a legal vacuum – they will need to keep sustainability in mind,” he told RFI.
In 2018, states granted fisheries €30.1 billion ($35.4 billion) in public subsidies, according to one study, with China, the European Union, the United States, South Korea and Japan in the lead.
Of that sum, “governments spend around €18.7 billion ($22 billion) on harmful subsidies that contribute to overfishing and the depletion of marine resources”, said WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
The new rules aim to address both environmental concerns and the well-being of fishing communities.
“No one has an interest in financially supporting illegal fishing, or harvesting of already overfished stocks,” Irschlinger said. But there needed to be a mechanism for countries to stop doing so, he suggested, “without losing face in front of other states”.
