Chapter 2: Fisheries Subsidies Negotiations within the WTO Framework

Abstract

Due to increased international awareness of the importance of fisheries subsidies, this issue has made its way into WTO negotiations and at a series of Ministerial Conferences in the past decade.222 At first, the arguments among the WTO Members were on whether the existing SCM Agreement was sufficient for regulating fisheries subsidies or whether there was a need for new fisheries subsidies regulations within the WTO framework. The mandates of the Doha Ministerial Declaration and of the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration firmly established that there was a need for new fisheries subsidies regulations. At first the debate was on whether the structure of fisheries subsidies regulations should be based on a topdown or bottom-up approach. The discussions then moved increasingly towards a more detailed scrutiny of the sub-categories of fisheries subsidies and more concrete legal texts. This Chapter examines the negotiations at different stages from the Uruguay Round Negotiations to the most recent status to understand the reasoning and positions of different Members.