The road ahead and the future of eliminating fisheries subsidies under the WTO

Abstract

The World Trade Organization has explored forging an agreement on eliminating trade-distorting fisheries subsides for twenty years. To hasten towards the compromise among WTO Members, the chair of fisheries subsides circulated the revised draft text eyeing on the conclusion of negotiations before its twelfth ministerial conference at the end of 2021. This study analyzes the draft agreement, focusing on prohibition on subsidies concerning illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, overfished stocks and overcapacity and overfishing. In addition, cross-sectional models are specified to investigate the effects of subsidies. Results show that both direct and indirect payments contribute to catch while support aimed for resource management is largely decoupled from overcapacity. When countries are further divided into the developed and developing countries by the WTO and the HDI criteria, only indirect payments prove their effectiveness in boosting catch. These empirical results shed light on the importance and effectiveness of policy reform in global fisheries subsidies.