Efforts to secure landmark WTO fisheries subsidies agreement blocked

Abstract

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) identified establishing a WTO agreement to curb harmful fisheries subsidies as an urgent international priority. Creating binding rules to restrict such subsidies is critical to preventing the collapse of global fish stocks, ensuring the sustainability of global fisheries, and reducing distortions and unfair competition in global seafood trade. The WTO reached a preliminary (“Phase 1”) agreement in 2022, prohibiting subsidies for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, fishing of overfished stocks, and fishing on the unregulated high seas. Yet its measures are highly limited in scope, covering only a small fraction of all harmful fisheries subsidies globally. Most importantly, the agreement is entirely devoid of any disciplines on subsidies contributing to overcapacity and overfishing, which are the primary problem. Continued negotiations towards a “Phase 2” agreement on these measures successfully produced a draft set of rules with widespread support. However, although the overwhelming majority of states support the proposed Phase 2 agreement, it has been blocked by just three countries – India, Indonesia and the US. The WTO fisheries negotiations are now deadlocked, leaving little prospect of achieving the mandate set out in the SDGs.