Soft law with hidden teeth: The case for a FAO international plan of action on sea turtles

Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy

Volumn 9, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 155-173

  Lugten, Gail L ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY; TURTLE; WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT;

CHELONIIDAE; TESTUDINES;

EID: 33745059610     PISSN: 13880292     EISSN: 15481476     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13880290600728179     Document Type: Article

References (81)

1. B.A., LL.B., Dip.Ed., Ph.D., Law School and Antarctic Climate Change and Ecosystem CRC, University of Tasmania, Australia. Gail.Lugtenυtas.edu.au
2. The First International Fishers Forum (IFF1) had been conducted in November, 2000 at Auckland, New Zealand. The Second Fishers Forum comprised 236 participants from 28 states. Participants included representatives from the Pacific Ocean longline fishing industry, fishing gear manufacturers, seafood traders, international and regional organizations, government agencies, environmental agencies, and academia. IFF3 was held in Yokohama, Japan in September 2005. Proceedings of the IFF2 are recorded in Werstern Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, Proceeding of the 2002 Second International Fishers Forum (IFF2), 2 Executive Summary (2003).
3. FAO, Guidelines To Reduce Sea Turtle Mortality In Fishing Operations, Adopted by Twenty-Sixth Session of the Committee on Fisheries, March 2005.
4. Irene Kinan, ed., Western Pacific Sea Turtle Cooperative Research And Management Workshop Report, February 5-8, 2002 at, (2002) 1.
5. World Conservation Union http://www.redlist.org. Refer the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Database Search. Accessed January 13, 2005.
6. Kinan, supra note 4.
7. Hock Clark Liew, Status of Marine Turtle Conservation and Research in Malaysia in Kinan, supra note 4, at 53.
8. Agus Dermawan, Marine Turtle Management and Conservation in Indonesia in Kinan, supra note 4, at 70.
9. Refer http://www.bagheera.com/inthewild/van_anim_turtle.htm p.2 (1) Accessed January 13, 2005.
10. Kirstin Bobbs, Marine Turtle Conservation in the Great Barrier Reef, World Heritage Area, Queensland, Australia, in Kinan, supra note 4, at 82. The report goes on to note that there are no mandatory reporting requirements for turtles caught by fishing activity in Queensland waters, so it is hard to know what is really happening with fishing by catch.
11. Martin A. Hall, On Bycatches, 6 Rev. of Fish Biology & Fisheries 319-352. Italics by this author.
12. Id.
13. Martin A Hall, Dayton L. Alverson, & Kaija Metuzals, Bycatch: Problems and Solutions, 41 Marine Pollution Bulletin 201, 204 (2000).
14. Deidre Brogan, A Review of Turtle Bycathc in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean Tuna Fisheries (Report prepared for the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) Noumea, New Caledonia.) The Report goes on to note that such statistics have wide confidence intervals since total observer coverage in the region has been very low - less than one per cent.
15. NOAA, Status of the Hawaii Longline Fishing Experiments to Reduce Sea Turtle Bycatch: October, 2002, supra note 3.
16. Boggs C.H. Deterring Albatrosses from Contacting Baits During Swordfish Longline Sets in Seabird Bycatch: Trends, Roadblocks and Solutions 79-94 (Melvin E.F. & Parrish J.K. eds., 2001).
17. NOAA, supra note 15.
18. Bolton A.B. and Bjorndal K.A., Experiment to Evaluate Gear Modification on Rates of Sea Turtle Bycatch in the Swordfish Longline Fishery in the Azores in Proceedings of the Second International Fishers Forum 2002(1),
19. McElderry H., Schrader J. and Illingworth J., The Efficacy of Video-Based Electronic Monitoring Technology for At-Sea Monitoring of the Halibut Longline Fishery 2002 Proc. of the Second Intl Fishers Forum,
20. Id at 3.
21. Id.
22. Id. The report notes that some species, particularly non-distinct forms, were not identified well by EM.
23. Id. The authors suggest that the ideal monitoring program would be an integrated EM-observer program using both methods in a complimentary fashion.
24. Martin Hall, 2002, Proc of the Second Intl Fishers Forum,
25. Emphasis by this author.
26. Preamble to FAO Conts. Refer UNFAO Legal Office Basic Texts, www.fao.org. Accessed January 13, 2005.
27. Id, Article 1.1.
28. Id, Article 1.2 and 1.3.
29. FAO 1995, Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, Rome. ISBN 92-5-103834-1. Available On Line at www.fao.org/fi/agreem/codecond/ codecon.asp. Accessed January 13, 2005 (1). Hereinafter referred to as the "Code of Conduct."
30. William Edeson, The International Plan of Action on Illegal Unreported and Unregulated Fishing: The Legal Context of a Non-Legally Binding Instrument in 16 Intl. J. Marine & Coastal Law 603, 609 (2001).
31. Patricia Birnie & Alan Boyle, International Law and the Environment 25 (2nd ed. 2002).
32. Douglas Hykle, The Convention on Migratory Species and Other International Instruments Relevant to Marine Turtle Conservation: Pros and Cons in 5 Journal of Intl. Wildlife law and Pol. 105, 107.
33. United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED) June 3-14, 1992, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (The Earth Summit) United Nations Publication ISBN: 92-1-100509-4.
34. Id. The blueprint for global environmental action to be taken throughout the 1990s and into the 21st Century.
35. FAO, The Rome Consensus on World Fisheries (adopted by the FAOMinisterial Conference on Fisheries Rome 14-15 March 1995 (1). On line at http://www.fao.org/fi/agreem/consensu/conef.htm Accessed January 14, 2005 (1).
36. The Kyoto Declaration and Plan of Action on the Sustainable Contribution of Fisheries to Food Security, Kyoto Japan December 4-9, 1995 (1). On line at http://www.fao.org/documents Accessed January 14, 2005 (1).
37. Rome Declaration on the Implementation of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, Adopted by the FAO Ministerial Meeting on Fisheries, Rome, March 10-11 1999. On line at http://www.fao.org/documents. Accessed January 14, 2005 (1).
38. Reykjavik Declaration on Responsible Fisheries in the Marine Ecosystem, October 1-4, 2001. Available on line at www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/004/ Y2211e.htm. Accessed January 14, 2005 (1).
39. World Summit on Sustainable Development Resolution 1 - Political Declaration Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development, and Resolution 2 - Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Both documents can be found at A/CONF.199/20. Published by United Nations, New York, 2002 ISBN 92-1-104521-5. Available on line at www.johannesburgsummit.org.
40. David Doulman, The 1995 FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries: Development Considerations and Implementation Challenges, Paper Presented at the National Workshop on the Implementation of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, Dhaka, Bangladesh, April 22-23, 2002.
41. William Edeson, The Role of 'Soft' International Instruments to Control Fishing 20 Australian Y.B. of Intl Law 12.
42. Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Committee on Fisheries COFI/2003/3, emphasis by this author.
43. The survey was conducted in 2000 and 2002. The total responses in 2000 were 56 percent and in 2002 they were 57 percent. Some States responded in 2002 when they did not respond in 2000, but conversely there were other states responding in 2000 and not responding at all in 2002.
44. Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Eritrea, Guinea, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Senegal, Seychelles, South Africa, Togo and Tunisia; Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines and Sri Lanka; Cyprus, European Community,Greece, Norway, Spain and Sweden, Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela; Egypt, Islamic Republic of Iran, Jordan, Oman and Syrian Arab Republic; Canada and the United States of America; Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tonga.
45. Brazil, Egypt, and United States of America.
46. Namibia, South Africa, Thailand, Brazil, Mexico and the United States of America.
47. Trinidad and Tobago, the European Community, Spain, Sweden, Syrian Arab Republic, Canada, Australia, Marshall Islands, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.
48. COFI, supra note 42, paragraphs 53-55 and 58-60.
49. Committee for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR); the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), General Fisheries Council for the Mediterranean (GFCM), Inter American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), North Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (NAFO), and South East Asian Fisheries Development Corporation (SEAFDEC).
50. CCAMLR, GFCM, IATTC, ICCAT, IOTC, NAFO and SEAFDEC.
51. IPOA-Seabirds, The International Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries can be accessed through the FAO homepage at http://www.fao.org/documents. See Paragraph 4.
52. COFI, supra note 42, paragraph 84.
53. Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice provides that the ICJ shall apply: "(a) international conventions ..., (b) international custom ..., (c) the general principles of law recognised by civilised nations, (d) . . . judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations . . ."
54. See for example, Antonio Cassese, International Law 161 (2001).
55. Birnie & Boyle, supra note 31, at 16.
56. Concluded Under the Auspices of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, Manilla, June 23, 2001. On Line at http://www.ioseaturtles.org/Mou/MoU_CMP_combo.pdf. Accessed Jan 14, 2005 (1).
57. On Line at http://www.cms.int/species/africa_turtle/AFRICAturtle_bkgd.htm.
58. On Line at http://www.seaturtle.org/iac/intro.shtml.
59. In the Pacific Ocean region those States which have implemented sea turtle conservation and management programmes include: Australia, United States, Japan, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, Papua, Fiji, Vanuatu, Palau, Guam, American Samoa, Mexico.
60. WSSD supra note 39. (Underlined emphasis by this author).
61. United Nations General Assembly 57th Session, A/57/PV.78+Corr.1, Adopted Without Vote December 20, 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. A/RES/57/253. On Line at http://www.un.org/Depts/dh/resguide/r57.html. Accessed January 14, 2005 (1).
62. United Nations General Assembly 57th Session Plenary A/57/PV.74 Adopted Without Vote December 12, 2002 Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks, A/RES/57/143. On Line at http://www.un.org/Depts/dh/resguide/r57.htm Accessed January 14, 2005 (1).
63. United Nations General Assembly 57th Session Plenary A/57/PV.74 Adopted Without Vote December 12, 2002 Large-scale pelagic drift-net fishing, unauthorized fishing in zones of national jurisdiction and on the high seas/ illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, fisheries bycatch and discards, and other developments, A/RES/57/142. On Line at http://www.un.org/Depts/dh/resguide/r57.htm.
64. United Nations General Assembly 57th Session Plenary A/57/L.48/ Rev.1+Add.1 Adopted By Vote 132 in favour, 1 vote against, 2 abstentions on December 12, 2002 Oceans and Lawof the Sea, A/RES/57/141. On Line at http://www.un.org/Depts/dh/resguide/r57.htm. The one dissenting vote was from Turkey, the two abstentions were Colombia and Venezuela.
65. A/RES/57/253, supra note 61, Paragraph 6. Such programmes obviously include the "required" and "urgent" implementation of the FAO International Plans of Action.
66. A/RES/57/143, supra note 62, Preamble and Paragraph 4.
67. A/RES/57/142, supra note 63, Preamble.
68. Id. at Paragraph 13.
69. A/RES/57/141, supra note 64, Paragraph 7.
70. Id. at Paragraph 8.
71. Id. at Paragraph 53.
72. That is, A/RES/57/253, supra note 61, Paragraph 6
73. A/RES/57/143, supra note 59, Paragraph 4
74. A/RES/57/142, supra note 60, Paragraph 13. Emphasis by this author.
75. General Assembly Press Release GA/10122, 10 December 2002.
76. Maurice Mendelson, The Legal Character of General Assembly Resolutions: Some Considerations of Principle in 95 Legal Aspects of the New Intl. Econ. Order 96 (Hossain K. ed. 1980).
77. Id.
78. Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua Case (Nicaragua v USA) (Merits) 1986 International Court of Justice Reports at 14.
79. F.L. Morrison, Appraisals of the ICJ's Decision: Nicaragua v United States (Merits)" (1987) 81 Am. J. of Intl. Law 160, 161(1987).
80. Note for example The Advisory Opinions on Western Sahara 1975 International Court of Justice Reports at 12, and Legal Consequences for states of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South-West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970) 1971 International Court of Justice Reports at 16.
81. Morrison, supra note 77.