Abstract
Fisheries subsidies negotiation was added to the negotiation agenda of the DDA largely by the concern for the depletion of fishery stocks. Some members, in particular, the Friends of Fish group countries, claimed that over-fishing and overcapacity caused by various fisheries subsidies program have resulted in the depletion of fishery stocks. Therefore, they argued that new disciplines should be introduced to address the situation. In 2007, after more than five years of negotiations, the chairman of the Rules Negotiations Group circulated a consolidated text. However, the negotiations have hardly made progress since then. This paper examines whether the Rule Negotiating Group chair’s text is legally and practically appropriate to serve as a basis for the fisheries subsidies negotiations. In order to address the question, this paper presents the brief history of fisheries subsidies negotiations at the WTO. Then, it analyzes critical issues of the Rule Negotiating Group chair’s text. It also explores the consolidated text of the TPP negotiations. Based on the analysis, it concludes that the basic concept and the principle of the chair’s text are inconsistent with those of the ASCM, and that the structure of the text does not conform those of the ASCM and other WTO agreements. Likewise, the TPP text bears similar problems. Therefore, it is highly questionable whether WTO members and TPP parties can actually achieve the goal to conserve fishery resources. WTO members as well as TPP parties should try to address these problems, so that they can make real progress in negotiations.
Highlights
At the fourth World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference held at Doha, Qatar on November 2001, WTO members agreed toHow to cite this paper: Cho, Y. (2015)
This paper deals with the Development Agenda (DDA) negotiations on fisheries subsidies where the members have tried to explore new disciplines for fisheries subsidies
In particular, the Friends of Fish countries, claimed that over-fishing and overcapacity caused by various fisheries subsidies program have resulted in the depletion of fishery stocks, and insisted that new disciplines should be introduced to address this situation
Summary
At the fourth WTO Ministerial Conference held at Doha, Qatar on November 2001, WTO members agreed to. The fisheries subsidies issue was added to rules negotiations largely due to the active role of the Friends of Fish, a group of countries that include Argentina, Australia, Chile, New Zealand, the US, to name a few These proponents claimed that fisheries subsidies should be prohibited extensively, as imminent depletion of fishery stocks on a global basis was the result of over-fishing and the fishing overcapacity caused by various subsidies programs. Considering that a large number of developing and least-developed countries are engaging in the fishing industry, and are largely dependent on it, fisheries subsidies provided by relatively developed countries may have a negative impact on the socio-economic development of under-developed countries For these reasons, the Friends of Fish members allege that a new set of rules should be introduced to regulate fisheries subsidies which cause over-fishing and overcapacity, and bear a negative impact in all three dimensions. While this paper’s analysis tries to acknowledge the issues involving fisheries subsidies, its focus is on the legal analysis
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