The New International Law of Fisheries

The call by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development for new negotiation to improve conservation of high seas fishing stocks challenges the capacity of international law to cope with emerging problems. Examining past and current experience, The New International Law of Fisheries considers the revolutionary changes in the international law of the sea that reached their final stages in the 1970s and discusses their impact on state practice and customary law. It focuses on the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, particularly the provisions on the exclusive economic zone where the bulk of world fishing occurs, as well as the major international decisions on high seas fishing, including driftnets, the harvesting of particular species (salmon, tuna, and marine mammals), and the stocks that occupy coastal areas of national jurisdiction and high seas.