Prescriptive Jurisdiction over Foreign Fishing in the EEZ

Abstract

This Chapter explores how coastal States use their prescriptive jurisdiction to regulate foreign fishing in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and how this implements, varies, or develops the framework established in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC). It demonstrates that the formula established in the LOSC for regulating access to the living resources of the EEZ—the obligation to establish whether there is a surplus, the criteria to be applied in allocating any surplus to foreign States, and the terms and conditions that might be imposed on foreign vessels involved in extracting it—bears little similarity to the contemporary regulation of foreign fishing by coastal States. While this formula was intended to ensure a balance between the exclusive jurisdiction of coastal States and the interests of the international community, in practice it has proved poorly adapted to this task, and very few coastal States follow the specific mechanisms set out in the LOSC. Instead, the detailed analysis of State practice in this Chapter shows how coastal States use the broad discretions in the LOSC to pursue a wide range of economic, social, political, national security and foreign policy objectives, and adopt regulations that broaden the substantive, geographic, personal and temporal application of their influence.