International Trade v. Environmental Protection: The Case of the U.S. Embargo on Mexican Tuna
![handle is hein.journals/geojintl24 and id is 135 raw text is: INTERNATIONAL TRADE V. ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION: THE CASE OF THE U.S.
EMBARGO ON MEXICAN TUNA
INTRODUCTION
For reasons still unknown to scientists, dolphins' and yellowfin tuna
have a unique association only in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean
(ETP).2 Moving together as they forage for food, the dolphins are visible
on the surface while the tuna swim in the depths.' Observing this phe-
nomenon, fishermen in the ETP have for several decades used the dol-
phins to locate deep-swimming tuna. Using a fishing technique called
setting on dolphins, ETP tuna fishermen intentionally encircle dolphins
with purse seine nets' to snare the tuna below. An unfortunate result has
been the drowning or maiming of many dolphins who are incidentally
caught in the nets with the tuna.6
Responding in part to public concern over the dolphin slaughter-U.S.
tuna fishermen alone killed an estimated 368,000 in 1972'-Congress en-
acted the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) of 1972.8 This Act
was a harbinger of a collision between domestic environmental law and
international trade law two decades later.
1. Although taxonomists place dolphins (family Delphinidae) and porpoise (family Pho-
caenidae) in two separate families, the terms are often used interchangeably. Since both swim with
yellowfin tuna in the Eastern Tropical Pacific, the term dolphins will refer to both dolphins and
porpoise in this Note. Laurel Lee Hyde, Comment, Dolphin Conservation in the Tuna Industry: The
United States' Role in an International Problem, 16 SAN DIEGO L. REV. 665, 665 n.2 (1979).
2. The Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean (ETP) is defined as an area in the Pacific Ocean
bounded by 40 degrees North latitude, 40 degrees South latitude, 160 degrees West longitude, and the
coasts of North, Central and South America. 50 C.F.R. § 216.3 (1991). It covers approximately six
million square miles. Kerry L. Holland, Note, Exploitation on Porpoise: The Use of Purse Seine Nets
by Commercial Tuna Fishermen in the Eastern Tropical Pacic Ocean, 17 SYRACUSE J. INT'L L. &
COM. 267, 268 (1991).
3. Earth Island Institute v. Mosbacher, 746 F. Supp. 964, 966 (N.D. Cal. 1990), affd, 929 F.2d
1449 (9th Cir. 1991).
4. A purse seine is a large [net] designed to be set by two boats around a school of fish and so
arranged that after the ends have been brought together the bottom can be closed. WEBSTER'S
NINTH NEW COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY 957 (1986).
5. 746 F. Supp. at 967.
6. Id.
7. H.R. REP. No. 970, 100th Cong., 2d Sess. 15 (1988), reprinted in 1988 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6154,
6156 [hereinafter 1988 MMPA REPORT].
8. 16 U.S.C. § 1361 (1988).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/geojintl24&div=10&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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International Trade v. Environmental Protection: The Case of the U.S. Embargo on Mexican Tuna
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