Using trade management to combat IUU fishery in African developing countries - The EC regulation no 1005/2008 and its practical effects

Abstract: IUU fishery is an issue with global consequences, having severe impacts in several areas such as economy, environment and social well-being. The size of the problem is due to its nature hard to determine, but estimations has shown that the amount of IUU fish that circulate in trade is considerable.

African developing countries have poor economical possibilities to control and survey their waters and the authorities are often badly organized with high levels of corruption. Because of this, African developing countries suffer hard from IUU fishing activities and they are among the countries in the world that have most difficult to fight this problem.

Several legislative attempts have been made to try to combat IUU fishery, most of them focusing on trade management in different perspectives. The European Union has developed a new regulation in the area, EC regulation no 1005/2008, entering into force January 1, 2010. The intention with this regulation is to hinder fish and fish products with origin from IUU fishing activities to enter the European trade market. To achieve this, states and companies that wish to export products to the Union must have catch certificates and traceability schemes that ensure the legal origin of the products.

The extent of fish trade with the European Union varies widely between African developing states. Countries that have a large amount of vessels fishing for trade with the Union will have more costs for certifying all the catch than countries with less trade. The implementation of the new requirements will however have effects on all of these countries since barely any of them have sufficient systems and methods for certification and traceability, or for the validation of the same.

Having in mind the poor economy and technical situation in African developing countries, the new requirements set up in the regulation may create unjustifiable trade barriers regarding the trade with their legally caught fish since these countries may find it difficult to implement the provisions. The European Union may need to give extra support to these states regarding the implementation of the requirements in order to avoid that the provisions will function as trade barriers. The support should not only constitute of financial means, but also of education, technical assistance and perhaps extended implementation periods.

The provisions in the new regulation also have positive effects in African developing countries. Improvements have been noticed in both authority structure and cooperation, and in monitoring, control and surveillance. Above all, improvements have been noticed regarding the awareness of the severe consequences of IUU fishery. The intentions are that there eventually also will be improvements in areas of environment and fish sustainability.

Time will tell whether the requirements in the regulation will have mostly positive or mostly negative effects on African developing countries. The negative effects mainly refer to the difficulties with fulfilling the requirements. In general, these difficulties could be limited by supportive measures. The positive effects may show over time when practicing the requirements, but the intentions are that IUU fishing will be decreased and thereby improve economy, environment and social well-being.