Abstract

Sustainability standards for seafood mainly address environmental performance criteria and are less concerned with the welfare of fisheries workers who produce the seafood. Yet human rights violations such as slavery and human trafficking are widespread in fisheries around the world, and underscore the need for certification bodies and other seafood supply chain actors to improve social performance, in addition to addressing environmental challenges. Calls for socially responsible seafood have referenced human rights law and policy frameworks to shape the guiding principles of socially responsible seafood and to provide the legal machinery to implement these aspirations, but practical guidance on how to achieve this is lacking. To provide clarity on this challenge, we reviewed the literature concerning human rights in the seafood supply chain, and prepared an analysis of opportunities and challenges to implement socially responsible seafood through relevant human rights, legal and policy instruments. We observe that human rights laws are generally framed in favour of addressing violations of civil and political rights, but there remains considerable scope for applying economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights in this context. Other challenges include weakly defined ESC rights infringements, a lack of straightforward mechanisms to enforce human rights entitlements, and practical difficulties such as resources to support and secure rights. On the positive side, governments can draw on international instruments to inspire national policies and legislation to eliminate illegalities from the seafood supply chain. However, for socially responsible seafood principles to translate into tangible actions, these objectives must be rooted in clear legal obligations and be supported by sufficient national capacity and political will.

Highlights

  • The sustainability movement in the seafood sector has grown significantly over the past twenty years in response to investments in market-based incentives and governance improvements

  • Failure to adhere to this principle can result in violations such as forced evictions, child labour, forced labour, detention without trial, and violence against fishing communities, all of which were evident in a review of human rights abuses in fisheries [6]

  • The research landscape for socially responsible seafood showed that the focus on socio-economic and cultural rights is highly relevant to small-scale fisheries, many of which operate under poor governance and socio-economic conditions which in turn threaten the food security, health, and livelihood of fishers

Read more

Summary

Introduction

The sustainability movement in the seafood sector has grown significantly over the past twenty years in response to investments in market-based incentives and governance improvements. In 2015, seafood that was certified as environmentally sustainable constituted 14% of global seafood production, compared to just 0.5% in 2005 [1]. The demand for seafood certified as sustainable reflects concerns over declining fish stocks and a desire to protect the oceans from becoming overfished. It has become increasingly clear that environmental sustainability is not the only challenge facing seafood production. Recent exposures of exploitative labour practices in the seafood supply chain, including slavery and human trafficking, clearly demonstrate a systemic disregard for human well-being within some sectors of the fishing industry [3,4]

Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
Full Text
Paper version not known

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call

Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.