The politics of negotiation at the United Nations Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks
Abstract This article examines the dynamics and politics that led to the adoption in August 1995 of an ambitious and comprehensive legal instrument that aims to regulate the management of straddling and highly migratory fish stocks. In retrospect, such an achievement may appear surprising, but can be partly explained by a number of particularities that had not occurred in past similar international negotiations. Among such key factors were the actors of these negotiations, distant water fishing States and coastal States on the one hand, and other non-State actors on the other hand. Non-governmental organizations in particular played an innovative and important role, as did such inter-governmental organizations as the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). At the same time, the proceedings of this Conference owe to two series of dynamics, one global in nature, which ruled the dealings of the actors, and particularly the bargaining between distant water fishing States and coastal nations, the other, a series of shifts that motivated individual States or groups of States to evolve in their positions throughout the more than two years of negotiations. The Conference also needs to be seen within the wider framework of the ‘mosaic’ of international instruments that were being negotiated at the time, in particular the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries. Furthermore, both the Conference and the Agreement are but the first steps in a long process where the commitment of the participating nations will be tested at the implementation stage.