Asia-Pacific Fishery Commission

Chatham House have released a briefing paper on the interaction between the EU regulations on IUU fishing and WTO.
http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/public ... 15725_bp0110baumuller.pdf

* Two new European regulations entered into force on 1 January 2010. Their aim is to establish a comprehensive system to close the European market to imports of illegally caught fish and to stop illegal activities by EU vessels.

* Some aspects of the regulations raise questions about their compatibility with World Trade Organization rules. Potential flashpoints include trade sanctions against foreign vessels and countries, and the application of different rules to EU and foreign operators.

* It seems more likely that a trade dispute would arise over the application of the regulations than over their provisions, for instance if fish exporters take issue with a specific trade ban, or feel that they have to fulfil more onerous requirements than EU nationals.

* Transparent and fair implementation of the regulations will be important not only to prevent a WTO challenge, but also to ensure that the regulations do indeed meet their objective of curbing illegal fishing.

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The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act (MSRA) contains a number of new provisions that will significantly shape the focus of fisheries management in the coming years. The reauthorized act gives attention to international fisheries. The overarching approach is a call for the Secretary of Commerce to work multilaterally through various fora, such as Regional Fishery Management Organizations (RFMOs), to address illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing and bycatch of protected living marine resources (PLMRs). A web page of NOAA covers:

1) The MSRA is attached below with highlighted areas of interest.

2)The international provision of the reauthorized act: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/msa2007/intlprovisions.html

3) Report to congress on IUU fishing and by-catch (January 2009).http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/msa2007/docs ... iennial_report_011309.pdf

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The EU has documented questions raised during its consultation in three regions(South Africa, South America and VietNam.

Some of these refer to the specific issues of fisheries in those regions, others relate specifically to the matter of mixed catches, certification of catch from small scale fisheries.

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DEFRA UK has also produced and excellent short guide entitled "Frequently Asked Questions Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing Regulation Council Regulation (EC) No. 1005/2008"

This document provides answers to some of the most common questions on how the new IUU regulation will be implemented. It also includes questions and answers that were posed to the European Commission during their regional seminars with third countries and their meetings with stakeholders. These questions and answers have been included as they will help UK operators better understand the requirements of the regulation.

The list of Frequently Asked Questions will be updated on a regular basis at the following address:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/fish ... nts/fisheries/iuu-faq.pdf

Updates and information canals will be published on the Defra website at:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/fish ... vation/iuu-regulation.htm

Handbook on the practical application of Council Regulation (EC) No. 1005/2008 of 29 September 2008 establishing a Community system to prevent, deter and eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (the IUU Regulation).

This is the first edition of DG Maritime and Fisheries (hereinafter DG MARE) Handbook on the practical application of Council Regulation (EC) No. 1005/2008 of 29 September 2008 establishing a Community system to prevent, deter and eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (hereafter, the IUU Regulation)

This Handbook aims only to provide technical advice to administrations and operators and to answer the most frequent questions. It gives a general overview on the content of all chapters of the IUU Regulation and deals with specific questions on the catch certification scheme. For this purpose section 5 of the handbook is composed of several sub-sections where each handbook user can find the most important information for his/her specific category. The wording used in this handbook should be understood in accordance with the definitions in Article 2 of the IUU Regulation (example: fishing vessel). To reach an easy understanding, a simplified and less legal language is used and references to the legal texts are limited to a minimum.

The information here is largely drawn from the EU's own website page:http://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/cfp/ext ... ns/illegal_fishing_en.htm

Council Regulation (EC) No 1005/2008 of 29 September 2008 establishing a Community system to prevent, deter and eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, amending Regulations (EEC) No 2847/93, (EC) No 1936/2001 and (EC) No 601/2004 and repealing Regulations (EC) No 1093/94 and (EC) No 1447/1999

The EU Regulation provides that the trade with the Community of fishery products obtained from IUU fishing will be prohibited.
To ensure the effectiveness of this prohibition, fishery products shall only be imported into the Community when accompanied by a catch certificate. Through this instrument, the competent authorities of flag state country of the vessel catching the fish will certify that the catches concerned have been made in accordance with applicable laws, regulations and international conservation and management measures. This certificate shall be validated by the competent authority of the flag state country, and if necessary, other documents envisaged by the certification scheme in the event of an indirect import after transhipment, transit or processing of the products in another third country.

The catch certification scheme will apply to all unprocessed or processed catches, except for freshwater fish, ornamental fish, aquaculture products obtained from fry or larvae or certain molluscs, contained in Annex I of the Regulation.

Inspired by RFMO's catch documentation schemes, it is a flexible instrument that can take into account different situations such as the nature of products, the type of fisheries, existing control systems and other factors.

The detailed technical note on the catch certification scheme: http://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/cfp/ext ... pdf/technical_note_en.pdf

APFIC also maintains an information section on this subject based partly on inputs/recommendations from this forum: http://www.apfic.org/modules/xfsection/article.php?articleid=81