Eliminating government support to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and avoiding the risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing with government support

Through the Target 14.6 of the Sustainable Development Goals framework, and through negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO), the international community has committed to eliminate subsidies that are detrimental to the health of global fish stocks.

The WTO Agreement of Fisheries Subsidies adopted in June 2022 already contains provisions to discipline some of the most potentially harmful types of subsidies: those that benefit illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing; those that benefit the fishing of overfished stocks; and those that benefit fishing in the unregulated high seas. Negotiations are now on-going to further discipline subsidies that contribute to over-capacity and over-fishing.

While the first phase of the agreement is still to be implemented, and a second phase  of negotiations is on-going, what can governments do, in practice, to ensure that their support policies do not benefit those engaging in IUU fishing? And what can they do to avoid encouraging other types of unsustainable fishing practices with government support in general?

The OECD contributes to shedding light on these issues by collecting and publishing detailed information on government support to fisheries at the country-level; analysing the conditions under which support is granted; highlighting the risk that different types of government support might encourage unsustainable fishing in the absence of effective fisheries management and enforcement; and investigating best practices to cut access to government support in cases of IUU fishing determinations.

Based on the 2025 (forthcoming) and 2022 editions of the Review of Fisheries, and the forthcoming update of the OECD Fisheries Support Estimate database (first quarter of 2025), it is proposed to provide input into sessions T6-3 and/or T6-5 by shedding light on:

• How to eliminate government support to IUU fishing by using eligibility criteria and appropriate processes to exclude from support potential recipients linked to IUU fishing and fishing-related activities?
• How to minimize the risk of inadvertently encouraging unsustainable fishing practices with the use of government support, by allocating public funding to policies that unambiguously support the sector’s sustainability (e.g. investments in stock assessment, management and monitoring control and surveillance) and targeting other types of support to fisheries that are well-managed?
• How could further transparency help fight IUU fishing and better support the fishing sector?

References :

OECD (2022), OECD Review of Fisheries 2022, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9c3ad238-en.

Delpeuch, C., E. Migliaccio and W. Symes (2022), "Eliminating government support to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing", OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Papers, No. 178, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/f09ab3a0-en.

OECD (forthcoming), OECD Review of Fisheries 2025, OECD Publishing, Paris.