The rhetoric of “responsible fishing”: Notions of human rights and sustainability in the European Union's bilateral fishing agreements with developing states

Abstract

Over the past two decades, European Union rhetoric has communicated a desire to take on a normative power role in advancing human rights and sustainable development approaches in the context of global fisheries policy. Officials have propagated an image of a "new Europe," committed to promoting good maritime governance and ensuring responsible fishing worldwide as part of its global responsibility to human rights and sustainable development. These normative principles have at times been framed as an integral part of the European Union's legal and political identity. In practice, however, the European Union's bilateral fishing agreements with developing states have come short of European Union aspirations, facing criticism for hindering rather than aiding local development. This paper explores the bilateral agreements from an international law perspective, engaging in grounded theory, discourse analysis, and a detailed case study on European Union-Senegal fishing relations. For the European Union, the article raises questions about conflicts between national and supranational fishing goals and about the challenges these conflicts present to its goal of normative leadership. More generally, the study suggests implications for enacting international law principles on the ground, as well as for the inherent power dynamics of post-colonial relations.

An assessment of the roles of tenure and inclusion in conflict mediation at Cabo Pulmo National Park, Mexico

“…This mechanism often carries the looming threat of overfishing in general has* repeatedly resulted in smaller scale fisherfolk with less industrialized vessels (and who* rely on smaller catches of fish) to rely on dwindling fisheries populations, particularly due to ecologically abhorrent practices like bottom trawling. Large-scale industrialized fishing fleets can be granted access to the fishing grounds of host countries for a price, like in the case of the EU's fishing agreements with Morocco, Mauritius, Mauritania and island nations in the South Pacific (Antonova, 2016). Further, the disproportionate ability of poorly regulated fishing fleets to overexploit the waters of a host country, particularly a developing one, can greatly and negatively affect the livelihood and local economies of smaller-scale fishing communities around the world, which again make up the vast majority of the world's fisherfolk (Franco et al, 2014).…”

Sustainable Networks: Modes of governance in the EU’s external fisheries policy relations under the IUU Regulation in Thailand and the SFPA with Senegal

“…The European Union (EU) has long functioned as a key power in sustainable global ocean governance [8]. Through both rhetoric and policy instruments, it has sought to frame itself as a responsible and progressive actor in fisheries governance [2,57]. To do so, it has built on its influence as the world's largest seafood market and on its exclusive competences for marine resources conservation, which enable and mandate it to negotiate on behalf of member states [1].…”

“…To do so, it has built on its influence as the world's largest seafood market and on its exclusive competences for marine resources conservation, which enable and mandate it to negotiate on behalf of member states [1]. As a result, its external fisheries policies have consistently been promoted by the European Commission and the Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE) as being part and parcel of a "new Europe" working at the service of normative global principles [2,43]. Taking a leading role in sustainable global oceanic governance remains a priority for the EU today.…”

“…With a few notable exceptions [2,36,41,47,56], the significance of normative power in international fisheries governance has been relatively underexplored in fisheries policy literature. Most literature exploring the EU's external fisheries policy has focused on the rule of law and its implementations [55] and emphasised the EU's implementation of value and rules using trade [60,64].…”

The European Union's fishing activity outside of European waters and the Sustainable Development Goals

“…Such external, international fishing effort provides economic opportunities for states and companies able to invest in the means required to fish further afield. It does, however, produce mixed outcomes for states whose EEZs are exploited by external fleets (Amusan & Oloba, 2019; Antonova, 2016; Kaczynski & Fluharty, 2002), or whose offshore neighbouring EEZs or ABNJ are impacted by increased fishing pressure (Belhabib et al., 2018; Rousseau et al., 2019; Tickler et al., 2018).…”