The 200-mile regime and the management of the transboundary and high seas stocks

Abstract

One of the basic tenets of the 200-mile regime is that a particular part of the ocean is allocated to the coastal states depending on the length of their coast lines. This situation is creating and will create new inequalities in regard to access to marine resources, even though attempts have been made in successive drafts of the Law of the Sea Treaty to address these inequalities.

One of the most important traits of the marine living resources is their migratoriness. Fish of a stock move freely across boundaries between EEZs as well as between an EEZ and the high seas, making the management of them by a single coastal state difficult.

Examples are given from the Japanese Fishery of two migratory species and one demersal species complex to argue that regional systems could be expected to manage a particular stock or stocks or parts of an ecosystem for international use of them while paying attention to the benefits to the developing countries.