Nongovernmental actors play several important roles in promoting compliance with international fisheries regulations. These roles consist on the one hand in monitoring, investigating and reporting occurrences of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and, on the other hand, in direct actions in coastal States’ exclusive economic zones and on the high seas. Some of these actions, in particular data gathering and sharing, fall squarely within the existing regime of the law of the sea. Other actions, such as some types of direct actions on the high seas, may be legally more questionable. In any case, the nongovernmental nature of the actors raises issues of efficiency, accountability, authority and allocation of responsibility. Notwithstanding expected resistance to reform from States and non‐State actors, there is a clear need to adapt and clarify the legal regime, at the risk otherwise of undermining the rule of law.
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The European Union’s (EU) new Regulation on the sustainable management of external fishing fleets strengthens the framework under which authorisations are granted to EU vessels desiring to fish outside of EU waters. It applies to all such fishing activities, conditions the granting of authorisations on sustainability criteria, and provides a level of institutional control on Member States’ actions, as well as some transparency. It also covers poorly monitored practices, such as reflagging and chartering. However, there have been some missed opportunities, in particular with regard to unregulated high seas fishing and the public accessibility of data on beneficial ownership. More generally, the impact on sustainability of the EU’s stricter measures will depend, in the highly inter-connected world of fisheries, on whether other States also embrace such good governance principles.
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