FISHERIES

ABSTRACT

Fisheries policy provides fundamental insights for trade lawyers. The scholar and practitioner of international trade law learns from a study of the utilization and trade of marine living resources about common dilemmas the pressure that trade places on the sustainability of production;the constraints on consumers seeking to discriminate on the basis of ethical sensibilities;the difficulties of norms and institutions interacting with other regimes of international law;and the complexity of overlapping regional and multilateral trade governance, comprising World Trade Organization and regional trade agreements. The COVID19 pandemic adds further challenges. This chapter investigates the dilemmas in three dominant areas (i) the negotiation of new trade rules, particularly within subsidy disciplines;(ii) the implementation of trade measures on fisheries, such as import bans for fish implicated in ‘illegal, unreported and unregulated' (IUU) fishing;and (iii) the settlement of trade disputes. Drawing on treaties, case-law and institutional developments, this chapter assesses global and regional regulation of fish production and consumption, including new developments in the blue economy, and provides insight into the role of trade law in modern international governance. © Oxford University Press 2022. All rights reserved.