3ja alheimsráðstefna sjávarútvegsins í Kína.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I thank you very much for the opportunity to adress this conference. It is indeed an honour, to be invited to share with you my views on international fisheries matters. The concept encompasses a wide spectrum, fisheries managment, research, environmental issues, and international market conditions to name but a few.

I will limit my discussion to issues that we Icelanders have identified as being major obstacles to sustainable fisheries. Insufficient knowledge is one. Absence of defined property rights, and overcapacity of the worlds fishing fleet, are other such issues, also the subsidies in the fisheries sector in many countries. Frequent failure of states acting through regional bodies to reach an agreement is also clearly an important obstacle to sustainable use of the marine resources.

When we decide to aim at sustainable use of marine living resources, the first pledge is to use the best scientific evidence as a basis for management decisions. This means that constant research has to be carried out on the marine ecosystem, commericial marine stocks, fishing gear and in oceanography. In Iceland emphasis is placed on multi-stock research and active participation on international cooperation.

When we look at the whole ecosystem we see that marine mammals are an important part. It is Iceland}s position that marine mammals should be exploited in a sustainable way like other living marine resources. Multi species research in Iceland has indicated that the long term yield of the cod stock is significantly impaired by continued growth of whale stocks.

Overcapacity in the world's fishing fleet does not only lead to unstainable fishing, but also affects the market conditions negatively. In Iceland we see the problem of overcapacity as one that has to be tackled nationally but it has clearly international implications as well. At a conference in Reykjavík in may this year, a professor of economics and business administration at the University of British Columbia in Canada Dr. Gordon Munro said
"The root cause of chronic excess capacity is the same as that of resource overexploitation, ill defined property rights to the capture fishery resources.... some fisheries economists complain that to focus on the exess fishing capacity as does the FAO International plan of Action is to be guilty of focussing on the symptoms of the disase rather than upon the causes of the disease."

In Iceland we have a management system based on ITQ's, individual transferable quotas, and thus we have defined the right to fish as indirect property rights. Together with the absence of subsidies, meaning that fishing enterprises have to show profits, the system sucessfully limits the capacity. In 1990 when a comprehensive ITQ system was implemented there were issued 2300 fishing licences to Icelandic ships and boats, now we issue less than 1700.

Subsidies are in our view closely related to overcapacity. A conservative estimate of subisides in the world is 15 to 20 billion US dollars a year. Some specialist are now saying that not all subsidies in fisheries are bad. They argue that some, like for example buy back schemes are good as they serve to reduce excess capacity. I would like to refer again to Professor Munro who said about this:
"the incentives to invest in fleet capacity remain, and are now enhanced. since the limited entry schemes accompanying the vessel buyback scheme are invariable imperfect, vessel capital seeps back into the fishery" -- and further ...it is easy to demonstrate and should be stunningly obvious that, if the vessel buyback is anticipated it will feed into the investment-decision-making- process, and will intensify investment in excess fleet capacity. The "good" subsidy is in fact a "bad" subsidy albeit well disguised."

It is difficult to use fishing vessels for other purposes than fishing. When strict national mesures to reduce overcapacity are taken, there often occurs a spillover effect. Ships are exported to states that are not as restrictive within their territories and the spillover effect is also seen in the fishing on the high seas. I do not see how this effect can be regarded as the fault of the export countries. In my opinion it should be seen as a powerful incentive for the import nations to tackle the questions of subsidies and badly defined property rights. And it is surely a powerful incentive for states with real interest in fishing on the high seas to reach an agreement on the management of the region in queston.

I mentioned but briefly here in the beginning international market conditions. Certification of products of sustainable fishing, the so called ecolabelling of fish products is an emerging issue where there is clearly a need for international guidelines. To my mind it is extremely important that such labels are voluntary, that we avoid that they become technical barriers to trade, and avoid private monopoly on criteria as well as a private ecolabel monopoly. We need a clear separtion of roles in an ecolabelling process and we must avoid an expensive verification processes. The Nordic countries have jointly worked on this issue and propose a set of criteria that we consider to be a good foundation for further work internationally. We propose to take that matter up in the relevant international fora.

With a slight simplification, one can say that the current international legal framework regarding fisheries puts fish stocks in four categories. Firstly, there are fish stocks that occur solely within the jurisdiction of one coastal state which then has the right to manage the fishery unilaterally. Secondly, there are fish stocks that occur within the jurisdiction of more than one coastal state but not in the high seas. In such cases all the states in question are obliged to co-operate in managing the fishery. Thirdly, there are fish stocks that occur both within the jurisdiction of one or more coastal states and on the high seas. For such stocks all states that have a real interest in the fishery have to co-operate in the management, both the coastal states in whose waters the stock occurs and the states that fish from the stock on the high seas. Fourthly, there are fish stocks that occur only on the high seas. By definition, no state can be considered to be a coastal state regarding these stocks but the states that fish from such a stock have the obligation to co-operate in managing the fishery. The conclusion is that international law obliges states to co-operate in managing fishing from all fish stocks that do not occur only within the jurisdiction of one coastal state.

The clarity of this part of the legal framework is certainly helpful for international fisheries management. Regional fisheries management organisations and arrangement are the cornerstone of management co-operation and in recent years we have witnessed both the forming of new management bodies and the strengthening of those that already existed.
However, as I'm sure you all know, a clear legal framework is not enough to solve the problems that arise. A legal framework that dictates that states shall co-operate does not guarantee that those states will be able to reach an agreement that everyone can live with, let alone one that everyone is happy with. States can have different ideas on how much should be caught from a certain stock and on how to allocate the total allowable catch. As a result of this there are several cases where it has been impossible to reach a consensus on how a fish stock should be managed. This failure to reach an agreement can lead to no management measures being adopted for stocks that are over-exploited and consequently it can lead directly to the depletion of the relevant fish stocks. This, of course, should be avoided whenever possible.
But if a state's failure to reach an agreement is a major problem regarding the adoption of management measures, what can be done to improve the situation?

One option could be a fundamental change in the legal framework that would simply remove the need to reach an agreement. For example, one could imagine a legal framework based on clearly defined property rights regarding fishing opportunities, where the so-called freedom to fish in the high seas would not be recognised at all. However, an option along these lines would probably create more problems than it would solve as it would be very difficult, to say the least, to get a world-wide consensus on such a new framework. A more realistic solution would be to work within the current framework.

Regarding disputes over how much the total annual catch should be I feel the best solution would be general acceptance of the need to follow the best available scientific advice. To act against the temptation to keep the total catches high when the scientific advice is to lower them, long-term management plans, consistent with the precautionary approach, should be more widely adopted. Where they have been adopted they should be followed as far as possible.

Agreeing on how to allocate the allowable catch to states is usually a much more difficult issue. There are several criteria that have to be looked at when such an allocation is made. As examples I can name the biological distribution of the stock, states' dependence on fishing from the stock and on fishing in general, states' historical catches, states' contributions to the stock's conservation, states' contribution to scientific research and the collection of data, the needs of coastal fishing communities which are dependant mainly on fishing for the stock, the needs of coastal states whose economies are overwhelmingly dependent on the exploitation of living marine resources and the needs of developing coastal states.

There is widespread support among states for most of these criteria, if not all. But even having agreed criteria is not enough when there is no agreement on what weight each criteria should be given. Different circumstances in different regions of the world, and regarding the various fish stocks in the same region, furthermore mean that the criteria should be weighed in several different ways depending on the circumstances in each case. For example, regarding stocks that occur within the jurisdiction of more than one coastal state, but not on the high seas, it could be enough to apply the criterion of the stock's biological distribution. In many cases, more than one set of criteria should be used for one fish stock. For example the criterion of biological distribution should be used to divide stocks into two parts, one that belongs to the high seas and another that belongs to water under the jurisdiction of coastal states. The other criteria would then be used to allocate the high seas part to relevant states.

It is therefore difficult to imagine a global agreement on a single standard of criteria weighing for fisheries allocation that would be valid for every fish stock that occurs in the high seas. This, of course, complicates the matter even further, as if it wasn't complicated enough already.
If no solution can be found we could be stuck in a situation where an increasing number of fish stocks that occur in the high seas are depleted, causing an environmental and economic disaster that no-one wants.

One possible solution that I would like to draw to your attention is the use of dispute settlement procedures to resolve disputes regarding the allocation of fishing opportunities. If states fail to reach an agreement on the management of a fish stock we could have rules in place that would, after a pre-decided period of time, bring the dispute into the dispute settlement procedure. The result of the procedures could be management measures for the disputed stock rather than over-exploitation in the absence of management.

I do not pretend to have found the simple solution that will turn allocation disputes into a matter that only historians will find interesting. Many difficulties have to be overcome before we can agree on procedures for allocating stocks that have never been allocated before. Among those are the questions of what body would make the ruling, how long the rulings would be in effect and how binding the rulings would be. A realistic approach might be to limit the rulings to advisory opinions as agreeing to binding decisions would mean that states would have to give up a part of their sovereign rights.

Reaching an agreement on what criteria to apply, and possibly listing the criteria in an hierarchical order, could turn out to be the biggest problem in making this possible solution work. Without any agreed criteria the dispute settlement procedures would be useless as they would not have anything on which to base their rulings. Differing circumstances make standards for weighing criteria unfeasible but agreeing on what criteria to look at, regardless of how they would be weighed, should be achievable at a regional level.

Therefore, the work that is currently being done, regarding allocation criteria, within a number of regional fisheries management organisations can prove to be of immense importance. It can provide us with criteria that will be applicable for allocation in the relevant region and thereby form the basis both for more effective negotiations on allocation and for dispute settlement procedures.

I am not presenting to you a specific scheme for precisely how the dispute settlement procedures would work. Rather, I am presenting you with an idea on how we can solve the problem of a failure to reach an agreement. This solution is entirely within the current international legal framework and regional bodies would continue to be the basis of international fisheries management.

The issue of using dispute settlement procedures to resolve allocation disputes needs to be discussed further and the biggest problems need to be ironed out before we can put it into practice, but it is my opinion that the use of dispute settlement procedures can be helpful in preventing the failure to reach an agreement from causing a disaster.

A further benefit that would be gained from resolving allocation disputes through dispute settlement procedures would be that big and small states would be put in a more equal position than is possible at a negotiating table. Rather than being pressured into accepting the demands of big states, a small state would have the option of removing the allocation dispute from the negotiation table and resolving it through the dispute settlement procedures.

In order to reach an agreement on going down this path, it would probably not be wise to set our sights higher than agreeing on procedures that would be voluntary in nature and would result in advisory opinions rather than binding measures.

Of course, dispute settlement procedures regarding allocation disputes would only be necessary in cases where no agreement can be reached between states on how to manage the fish stock in question. This means that the procedures would be the exception rather than the rule, as the preference should still be reaching a negotiated agreement. We have many examples of successful management where agreement has been reached and regarding the fish stocks that occur only within the jurisdiction of one coastal state no international agreement is necessary. We should therefore not overstate the scope of the problem of a failure to reach an agreement on allocation of fishing opportunities. However, it is not only a theoretical problem but a real problem which needs to be addressed.

In September next year we plan to hold a conference on "Responsible Fisheries in the Marine Ecosystem" in Reykjavík. The conference in organized in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. Its purpose is to bring together best available scientific information on changes that have occureed in the marine ecosystem at the global level and its implications for the future of capture fisheries. The aim is to review progress on how ecosystem considerations have been adressed at national level, stimulate discussion on options for future actions and define practical approaches that can be implemented. More specifically to gather and review the best available scientific knowledge on the subject, indentify means by which ecosystem consideration can be included in fisheries management and identify future challenges and relevant strategies.

In the last decades we have witnessed the ever increasing importance of interntional cooperation, not least in the fisheries sector. At the dawn of a new century it seems to me that this development is set to continue for years to come.
That is one of the reason that a minister from Iceland, which is situated on the other side of the globe, is here discussing fisheries matters with you. Hopefully, I will discuss them with many of you again in my country, next year.