The commodification of global governance? Fisheries certification in the era of market civilization

This dissertation examines some of the key characteristics of the emerging global organic crisis through an empirical analysis of a particular mode of environmental governance associated with market civilization. Specifically, this dissertation seeks to understand and conceptualize the emergence and extension of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification system, which was created by the corporation Unilever and the environmental organization World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in the late 1990s as a market-oriented approach to address the global fisheries crisis. Drawing inspiration from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which links a performance standard defining sustainability to third-party certification and product eco-labelling, Unilever and WWF designed the MSC to create economic incentives for producing and consuming sustainable seafood. The MSC initiative has become a significant force in the global seafood trade in the early 21St century, with hundreds of fisheries in various stages of assessment and thousands of products displaying the MSC eco-label.;Can we understand third-party certification and labelling systems like the MSC as commodified forms of global governance? This dissertation seeks to answer this question by examining not only the object of MSC governance, seafood 'commodity chains,' but also overlooked mechanisms of governance in the MSC system. In the making and extension of the MSC certification system, such mechanisms of governance include: the reliance on consultancy services in the creation of the MSC; the shift in the MSC from depending heavily on charitable donations towards a more self-sustaining commercial entity supported by eco-label licensing revenues; the generation of large- scale demand for MSC-certified fisheries and products principally through oligopsonistic and Northern-oriented commodity chains; and the implementation of MSC certification in specific fisheries by professional certification companies contracted by fishery clients, the certificate 'holders.' The dissertation demonstrates how institutions and processes of third-party certification and labelling governance not only aid markets and commodification but themselves become growing sites of commodification. MSC certification does not displace state-centered management systems but facilitates the redefinition of existing and new governance frameworks in more commodified ways.