WTO Fisheries Agreement Enters Into Force
The World Trade Organization's Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies took effect Sept. 15 during a special General Council meeting after instruments of acceptance were received from Brazil, Kenya, Vietnam and Tonga, the WTO announced. Those acceptances brought the total number over the two-thirds threshold needed for the deal to enter into force (see 2508250013).
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The General Council chair announced that Mali and Oman ratified the deal and will be depositing their instruments of acceptance "in the very near future."
The WTO said the deal is the "first multilateral agreement with environmental sustainability at its core," noting that it bars "government support to illegal fishing activities and overexploitation of stocks, contributing to the protection of marine life."
The agreement was initially adopted by consensus at the WTO's 12th Ministerial Conference in June 2022 and prohibits "subsidies for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, for fishing overfished stocks, and for fishing on the unregulated high seas." At the meeting, various WTO members joined in calling for all members to ratify the agreement.
To aid in implementing the deal, WTO ministers established the "WTO Fish Fund to provide developing economies and least-developed countries (LDCs) with technical assistance and capacity-building needed to implement the new obligations and manage their own fisheries more sustainably." Seventeen WTO members have pledged over $18 million to the fund.