Negotiating a new international fisheries regime: The United Nations Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks

The United Nations Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks was negotiated in six sessions over three years. Its outcome, the Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 Relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks (the Straddling Stocks Agreement) marks a watershed in the management of fisheries on the high seas. While it builds on the jurisdictional framework of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Straddling Stocks Agreement sets up new rights and obligations for both coastal states and distant water fishing nations, embodies new norms and rules of procedure, and thus constitutes a new regime. The Straddling Stocks Agreement is truly the result of negotiations and bargaining among the negotiating states, and its content reflects the balance that was struck between the divergent interests of coastal states, distant water fishing nations, and a handful of states with special interests. In contrast, the interests of the developing countries appear to have been sacrificed, and the special needs of these countries are recognized on paper, but are likely to be ignored at the implementation stage. A comparison of the negotiations of this Conference and the traditional models of regime building in international relations theory shows that the straddling stocks regime did not follow one of the three traditional modes of formation (imposition, spontaneity/maturation and negotiation), but rather resulted from a combination of these three approaches. The analysis further shows that these three modes of formation should not be regarded as mutually exclusive since, in the creation of this regime, they combined and built on one another. The lessons one may draw from such mode of formation, however, are limited, as the eventual success of the Conference and the value of the Straddling Stocks Agreement cannot be ascertained until the negotiating states reveal their true political intentions at the implementation stage.