THE AGREEMENT TO PREVENT UNREGULATED HIGH SEAS FISHERIES IN THE CENTRAL ARCTIC OCEAN: A COMMENTARYAgreement to Prevent Unregulated High Seas Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean • September 25th, 2021
Contract Type FiledSeptember 25th, 2021Although the Arctic Ocean is usually listed among the relatively few remaining areas of the world ocean not yet under the authority of any regional fisheries management organisation (RFMO),1 this is not strictly true, as the writ of the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) runs all the way to the North Pole in the sector between 42 W and 51 E.2 Nonetheless, NEAFC has never made use of its regulatory competence to institute any measures on fishing in the Arctic part of this area, and work has been undertaken in recent years to fill the spatial gap in regulatory coverage of the Arctic ocean as a whole. Thus it was that in June 2018 a near-final text of a treaty styled Agreement to Prevent Unregulated High Seas Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean was published in English, by one of the negotiating parties, the European Union (EU), as an annex to an instrument laid before the European Council seeking its authorisation for EU to sign the treaty.3