Managing Fisheries in the Barents Sea Loophole: Interplay with the UN Fish Stocks Agreement

Abstract

High seas fisheries for cod in the Barents Sea Loophole, a piece of international waters surrounded by the EEZs of Norway and Russia, is a rather recent phenomenon. This article assesses the interplay between the efforts to accommodate this straddling stock problem within the existing regional framework and the partially parallel evolvement of the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement. The hub of the regional regime is the bilateral Norwegian-Russian Fisheries Commission, which establishes total quotas and operational restrictions for the entire stock, based on scientific advice partly generated under the auspices of ICES. The article assesses the extent to which state positions and outcomes at the New York negotiations were influenced by this particular regional dispute and the impacts of the Fish Stocks Agreement on the ability to manage the Loophole fishery effectively.