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11 Ocean L. Memo 1 (1978)

handle is hein.journals/ocoaslme11 and id is 1 raw text is: Ocean Resources Law Program * School of Law * University of Oregon * Eugene * OR 97403 Ocean Law Memo Issue 11 December 1978 The Law of the Sea Conference's New Salmon Provision When and if the UN Law of the Sea Conf- erence--having convened eight times in nearly five years--succeeds in adopting a new ocean-law treaty, it will almost certainly include the salmon article ap- proved by the conference this year in Geneva. Some U.S. observers consider the new provision to be an improvement over its predecessor. In practical effect, however, the significance of the salmon (or anadromous stocks) article is likely to turn on events occurring outside the LOS Conference. Some background is in order. Anadromous fish are those remarkable species of aquatic life that are spawned in freshwater streams, migrate to the open ocean to fatten and then return to their home streams to begin the cycle anew. In the case of salmon, the oceanic migratory patterns can cover thousands of miles and take several years to complete. The outer- most reach of the long ocean journey has been traced to 1000 miles or more from the coastal entry point for some salmon runs. For several years, the U.S. argued that international law forbids other nations from fishing salmon on the high seas where the source nation is capable of fully harvesting the yield. Naturally, those countries who have engaged in fishing for salmon on the high seas disputed this so- called abstention principle. In fact, international law, with its traditional emphasis on freedom of fishing, never clearly recognized the abstention rule advocated by the U.S. and other source * Officially, the International Conven- tion for the High Seas Fisheries of the North Pacific Ocean. nations. The only real evidence of the rule appeared in the International North Pacific Fisheries Convention (INPFC)* between the U.S., Canada, and Japan, which was originally negotiated in 1952. The principal effect of this international agreement was to prohibit Japan from fish- ing North American-source salmon in the Pacific eastward of 1750 West longitude (a North-South line that runs approxi- mately through the middle of the Aleutian Island chain). As it turns out, however, large numbers of Alaska-origin salmon migrate into international waters west of this line, mingle with Asian salmon out of U.S.S.R. streams, and are captured there by Japanese gill nets. The source-nations have continued in the meantime to urge the abstention doc- trine and the abolition of the high seas salmon fishery. These nations, especially the U.S., reason that they have expended large sums in protecting spawning areas and fish runs and thus deserve first crack at the resource, that high seas gill-net- ting captures or kills the fish before they attain their optimum size and is therefore wasteful, and that indiscriminate fishing on several stocks at once jeopar- dizes rational management of individual salmon runs. The-Japanese fishery never- theless continued. Early in the current Law of the Sea Conference it became clear that only nine nation@*had any direct concern with salmon, which are thus far limited to the northern hemisphere. By the end of the ** U.S., Canada, Japan, Norway, Denmark, Ireland, Britain, Iceland and U.S.S.R. Distributed by: OSU Extension ServicEC- Jqjti Ma e A ry Program, Corvallis, OR 97331

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