Overfishing of Bluefin Tuna: Incentivizing Inclusive Solutions
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OVERFISHING OF BLUEFIN TUNA: INCENTIVIZING
INCLUSIVE SOLUTIONS
Kristen E. Boon*
I. INTRODUCTION
A central challenge facing the community of nations is how to conserve
and allocate fish stocks that exist beyond national boundaries.1 Some
2
migratory species are becoming dangerously scarce. The Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 30% of tuna stocks are
overexploited or depleted and 53% are fully exploited.3 Bluefin tuna are
particularly at risk: the eastern Atlantic's stocks of fish at the age of
reproduction declined by 80% between 1970 and 1992, and have fluctuated
between 21 and 29% of the 1970 level ever since.4 As a result, although
these fish were once thought to be endlessly renewable, we now know that
there are not enough fish for alli Overfishing is creating conditions of
scarcity; when one state harvests fish stocks, it reduces the catch of others.6
It is uncontested that collectively, all nations would benefit from better
cooperation in managing and sharing fish stocks in the high seas because of
the benefits of biodiversity, the importance of highly migratory stocks as a
food source, and the value of these stocks on the open market . Legally
* Professor of Law, Seton Hall Law School. Thanks to Ted McDorman, Jeff Dunnoff, Liza Gall,
Claire Kelly, Margaret Young, and Serge Garcia for very helpful comments. Thanks to German
Rozencranc, Jorge Vasquez, and Meredith Mona for their research assistance.
1 The types of stocks that fial into this category are highly migratory fish like tunas and sharks, sraddling
stocks that migrate between Exclusive Economic Zones and the high seas, and discrete stocks that are purely in
the high seas. Food & Agic. Org. of the U.N. [FAO], The Conservation and Management of Shared Fish
Stocks: Legal and Economic Aspects, at 3, FAO Fisheries Technical Paper No. 465 (2004) (by Gordon Munro et
al.), ftp'//aerl03.aerl.ubc.ca/m.bailey/ama%20docs/mumoetal2004_sharedstocks.pdf.
2 United Nations Resumed Review Conference on the Agreement Relating to the Conservation and
Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks, N.Y.C., May 24-28, 2010,
General Facts Regarding World Fisheries, U.N. Doc. DPI/2556 D.
3 Id.
4 Felicity Barringer, US. Declines to Protect the Overfished Bluefin Tuna, N.Y. TIMES, May 28, 2011, at
A14, available at 2011 WLNR 10678510. See also Int'l Comm'n for the Conservation of Atl. Tunas [ICCAT],
Stock Assessments, at 83-84, http'./www.iccatorg/Documents/SCRS/ExecSum/BFr EN.pdf (reporting on the
current status of eastern Atlantic Bluefin tuna stock).
5 OSCAR SCHACHTER, SHARING THE WORLD'S RESOURCES 39 (1977). See also Robin M. Warner
& Rosemary Rayfuse, Securing a Sustainable Future for the Oceans Beyond National Jurisdiction: The
Legal Basis for an Integrated, Cross-Sectoral Regime for High Seas Governance for the 21st Century,
23 INT'L J. MARINE & COASTAL L. 399, 401 (2008).
6 SCHACHTER, supra note 5, at 39.
7 See Robin Kundis Craig, Protecting International Marine Biodiversity: International Treaties](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/branlaj52&div=5&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Overfishing of Bluefin Tuna: Incentivizing Inclusive Solutions
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