July 8, 2021 — The World Trade Organization hosts talks next week aimed at reaching a deal to cap subsidies that contribute to the overfishing of the world’s seas and oceans.
Prospects for a breakthrough appear dim. WTO delegates have been negotiating for 20 years and only last December agreed on the definition of “fish”.
The WTO’s new director general, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said a deal is a top priority but she has also expressed doubts about a July conclusion.
July 7, 2021 — A new report shows that the world’s top fishing nations are using subsidies worth billions of dollars to exploit the high seas and the waters of other nations, including some of the world’s least-developed countries.
Published by researchers at the University of British Columbia and supported by the NGO Oceana, the report takes a shrewd look at “harmful fishing subsidies,” payments made by governments that allow fishing fleets to operate beyond their normal capacity. The researchers found that 10 countries — China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, the U.S.A., Thailand, Taiwan, Spain, Indonesia and Norway — spent more than $15.3 billion on harmful fishing subsidies in 2018, which has likely contributed to a number of social, economic and ecological issues.
About 60% ($9.2 billion) of these harmful fishing subsidies used by these 10 nations were spent on domestic fishing, while 35% ($5.4 billion) was spent on traveling long distances to fish in the waters of 116 other nations. The remaining 5% ($800 million) was spent on fishing in the high seas, which are parts of the ocean beyond any nation’s jurisdiction.
China was found to be the top provider of harmful fishing subsidies, worth about $5.9 billion, followed by Japan at $2.1 billion and the European Union at $2 billion.
Kathryn Matthews, chief scientist at Oceana, says the report shows the scale and magnitude of harmful fishing subsidies, which can transfer the risk of overfishing from one place to another.
July 1, 2021 — The world cannot afford to further delay action to protect the ocean, governments and conservationists agreed this month at a series of UN conferences. They called for “transformative” and actionable solutions following delays and cancellations caused by the pandemic last year.
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14) lists targets to reduce pollution, protect marine ecosystems, tackle illegal fishing and overfishing, and oversee sustainable resource use. But progress so far has been limited.
Only eight percent of the ocean is currently protected, a third of fish stocks are overexploited, and climate change is increasing ocean acidification and deoxygenation. This not only threatens marine biodiversity, but also the livelihoods of millions of people who rely on ocean resources.
“Clear transformative actions to address the ocean crisis must be found and must be scaled up. Our relationship with our planet’s ocean must change,” Volkan Bozkir, president of the UN General Assembly, said at a high-level debate on the ocean and SDG 14 in New York on June 1.
The event sought to maintain momentum ahead of the 2nd UN Ocean Conference, which was postponed due to the pandemic and is now expected to take place next year in Lisbon, Portugal. Bozkir said the pandemic revealed an “appetite for change” as people do not want to live in a world of “one crisis after the next.”
May 11, 2021 — The head of the World Trade Organization plans to host a ministerial meeting on July 15 where she hopes an agreement can be reached on cutting fisheries subsidies after 20 years of talks, a document showed on Monday.
Governments including major subsidisers China, the European Union and Japan spend billions of dollars a year to prop up their fishing fleets, contributing to over-fishing that is decimating wild stocks. The WTO was tasked by world leaders in 2015 with striking a deal to roll them back but missed a key deadline last year. read more
Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who took charge of the global trade watchdog in March, has made fisheries a top priority and urged ministers in an invitation letter seen by Reuters “to find the common resolve and spirit of compromise that the WTO needs to bring these twenty-year-plus negotiations to a successful conclusion at this meeting”.
Intensive negotiations will continue in Geneva with the chair of the talks, Santiago Wills, expected to issue a fourth version of the draft agreement this week.
April 28, 2021 — The world’s most important trade negotiation this year centers on a deal aimed at saving the world’s fisheries.
Back in 2015, global leaders tasked the World Trade Organization with ending excessive and illegal fishing. The idea was to eliminate government subsidies that incentivize companies to deplete the world’s fish stocks and threaten coastal economies.
But year after year, deadline after broken deadline, WTO negotiators failed to secure such an agreement.
This year it sounds different.
“It’s like a watershed year — we have to deliver some successes,” WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said Monday at a European Commission trade conference. She then recited her 2021 agenda with a fisheries deal atop the list.
A failure to conclude a fisheries deal would show that the WTO lacks credibility and is incapable tackling the more pressing problems of the modern global trading system. Okonjo-Iweala sees it as a way to signal to the world that the WTO is back.
There’s one big problem.
China, India and other developing nations are more focused on carving out exemptions than agreeing to enforceable disciplines that would help foster the sustainability of the world’s fish stocks.
April 19, 2021 — The head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has suggested difficult talks on ending harmful fishery subsidies should be concluded by July.
In an effort to inject some urgency to the talks, WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala pleaded with negotiators in Geneva, Switzerland, to maintain a sense of urgency.
April 12, 2021 — Ongoing World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations on a deal to curtail harmful fishing subsidies are stumbling over the issue of carve-outs for the artisanal fisheries of developing nations.
Exemptions for small, coastal fishing operations have been a thorny issue impeding progress on a deal over the last several months.
January 25, 2021 — World Trade Organization members have restarted negotiations on ending harmful fisheries subsidies, with the key issue of exemptions for artisanal fisheries and developing nations under debate.
WTO members reopened formal negotiations on fisheries subsidies as the heads of delegations met on 22 January in Geneva, Switzerland. The organization had hoped for a deal in 2020, but talks repeatedly stalled over the issue of special treatment for developing countries. Some developing countries involved in the negotiations have called for an exemption from any ban on harmful subsidies, after China’s claim to be classed as a developing nation created tension in earlier phases of the talks.
December 16, 2020 — A EUR 6.1 billion (USD 7.4 billion) budget of the next European Maritime, Fisheries, and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF) for 2021 to 2027 is drawing criticism from NGOs and a WTO delegate, who say it represents a harmful subsidy encouraging unsustainable fishing.
The package was agreed to in principle last week in Brussels by the European Union’s parliament, and the European Council, composed of member-state governments.
December 14, 2020 — Formal World Trade Organization negotiations on ending harmful subsidies to fisheries will recommence in the week beginning 18 January.
Talks hit another impasse earlier this month, with gaps in a text circulated at the WTO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, proving too great to overcome.