Dominance in Fishing

Abstract

What are the major problems of ocean management? The United Nations Law of the Sea Conference has on its agenda issues such as the width of the territorial sea, the creation of a new international administrative body, passage through straits, fishing rights, the exploitation of seabed minerals, and the like. What really motivates concern for these issues? The values drawn from the sea include both extracted material goods, such as fish or oil or hard minerals, and non-material benefits, as when the sea provides a roadbed for transportation, a cooling medium, or a site for disposal of wastes. From these uses there is derived an overarching concern for orderliness. Traditional admiralty law, for example, is based on the principle that the business of using the seas requires a stable and orderly regime. Many argue that we need to establish clear new rules because otherwise there will be chaos, and possibly war, in the race to exploit the resources of the seas. Uncertainties need to be resolved so that the economic development of ocean resources can proceed in a businesslike manner. New goals for ocean management have recently emerged as a result of rising awareness of ecological issues. Pollution control and the conservation of living resources are seen as important investments for the protection of future yields from the sea. Suppose rights were clearly established so that everyone knew just what materials and what actions he was entitled to take. And suppose the seas were kept clean and the resources protected. Would the problem of ocean management then be resolved? There would still remain the questions: Who benefits? Who should benefit? It may be that all will gain in some degree, directly or indirectly, from the economic development of the oceans. But who is to get what share in that bounty? If it is the already rich and powerful who gain most, their advantaged positions will be ever more solidly established. Weaker people, though possibly winning some gains, will continue to fall farther and farther behind. Badly distributed, the new benefits to be drawn from the seas might contribute to enlarging the growing gap between the rich and the poor. My purpose here, then, is to raise the question of distributional justice. Justice is not simply that which courts and arbitrators dispense in specific cases of conflict. It has to do with the underlying structure of society and the totality of its effects on all its members. Questions of justice need to be raised not only in conflicts but also in agreements that are made and in conditions that are accepted without protest. Whether or not the use of the oceans will lead to the effective development of the peoples of the world remains open to question. I will try here to make the existing distribution of benefits from one use of the oceans, fishing, more visible. The pattern in this old use portends the likely pattern in newer uses. This demonstration of dominance, the ways in which some groups of people systematically and regularly obtain a larger share of benefits than others, may help open us to the idea that other patterns are conceivable, others might be more desirable, and other more desirable patterns might even be feasible.