A Study on Implementation of the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies in Korea

In the last June, the WTO MC 12 has made the millstone where the MC 12 adopted the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies for prohibiting subsidies on overcapacity fisheries, and overfishing, and eliminating subsidies on IUU fishing. It still remains “instrument of acceptance” of the protocol of the Agreement on fisheries Subsidies, but the international communities and the WTO secretariat are calling WTO members to deposit their instruments of acceptance. For its operation, two-thirds of WTO members need to deposit them at the WTO. Korea is one of the major fishing countries such as China, Japan, Norway and others and so enforcement of this agreement will have significant effects on the Korean fishing industry, especially distant shipping. On the basis of the Distant Water fisheries Development Act of Korea, the Korean government is supporting its distant shipping industry in terms of policy support, subsidies, consulting and others. The WTO subsidies agreement has not specified and detailed which fisheries subsidies of the agreement will include governmental support as the prohibited subsidies. In this line, the Korean government should be able to implicate the Korean policy to the agreement in terms of extent of the Korean subsidies.