The Role of International Law in Inter-State Fishery Conflict

Organised by

• Department of Law

This thesis investigates the role of international law in inter-State fishery conflict by examining conflict in Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs). RFMOs serve as mechanisms through which States cooperate in managing shared fish stocks, i.e., stocks which extend beyond the jurisdiction of a single State. Specifically, this thesis focuses on conflict over‘straddling’ and ‘highly migratory’ stocks, which occur both within and beyond waters under national jurisdiction. RFMOs adopt Conservation and Management Measures (CMMs) which are legally-binding on the members of the RFMO. The thesis argues that an important part of current inter-State fishery conflict involves disagreement over the adoption of these RFMO measures. This conflict is especially acute where CMMs involve limiting and distributing how much different States can fish for the shared stocks. The thesis therefore closely investigates the work of RFMOs, looking both to the substance of RFMO measures as well as the decision-making procedures for their adoption. In doing so, the thesis is guided by the approach of ‘New Legal Realism’ which promotes empirical and conditional theorising about the role of law. The aim is to understand how the law ‘in action’ reflects the tension between external factors (such as State power) and the law’s own internal logic (its reason). This thesis is therefore the result of socio-legal ethnographic research, using document analysis and interviews as well as three and a half years of participant observation. Overall, the thesis explores how decision-making in RFMOs has given meaning and specificity to the otherwise ambiguous high-level legal norms on the sovereign rights of coastal States and the duty to cooperate over shared stocks. However, while States do use the law to articulate and justify their claims in RFMO negotiations, external factors clearly also shape the application of the law, and therefore its role in inter-State fishery conflict.