WTO members concluded the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) in Geneva on 17 June, securing multilaterally negotiated outcomes on a series of key trade initiatives.
The negotiations on fisheries subsidies began more than twenty years ago, in 2001, and have now reached an important milestone. It is the first time WTO members have ever concluded a deal “with environmental sustainability at its heart”.
It includes a strong prohibition of subsidies contributing to illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing with unprecedented transparency provisions. Secondly, it includes an absolute prohibition of subsidies for fishing on the unregulated high seas. And thirdly, the provision on overfished stocks will bring sustainability rules for subsidies regarding most vulnerable stocks in the first phase of the agreement.
The agreement has been welcomed by many, including the UK Government and the EU. The agreement also provoked responses by the NGO community, including WWF, IUCN, Bloom and Pew, amongst others. The UK’s International Trade Secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, issued a statement following the conclusion of the Ministerial Conference. She said that: “The Fisheries Agreement does not go as far as many members wanted (the UK included). But it does go some way to delivering what our ocean’s need and all those that are dependent on them. We made a firm commitment to continue negotiations so that we can support the recovery of global fish stocks. No one has worked harder than the Director-General, who has moved mountains in her efforts to bring about consensus. I congratulate her, the WTO Secretariat, Committee Chairs and Facilitators for their tireless efforts.”
The story has been covered widely, including Reuters, the Guardian and Politico, with some excellent analysis by Mongabay that covers the history and next steps. In it they state that ‘Governments have spent $400 billion on fisheries subsidies, by one estimate since negotiations began. Many observers are welcoming the agreement as “historic,” coming as it does two decades after talks began in 2001, even as others point out “major weakness.” The new agreement addresses certain harmful subsidies. But in the interest of reaching consensus, negotiators put off dealing with others where agreement proved elusive. In the interest of reaching a deal, the WTO’s 164 member states put off dealing with certain subsidies where agreement proved elusive: those that contribute to building fleets with capacity to fish unsustainably and other forms of overfishing. Negotiators say they will re-open talks on those issues at the WTO’s next ministerial conference, possibly in late 2023.’
The press statement from WTO can be read here and the WTO agreement on fisheries subsidies can be found here.