A systematic review of the socioeconomic outcomes of the European Union’s trade-based measure for seafood sustainability.
Abstract
Abstract
Seafood is one of the most internationally-traded food commodities, creating opportunities for importing countries to exert influences on exporting countries via the control of market access. Over the past decade, global seafood market states have implemented a series of trade-based measures to improve transparency throughout international supply chains and, where possible, leverage market access to demand certain standards on the fishing practices and management in exporting states. The European Union’s IUU Regulation (EC No 1005/2008) is the most prominent and well-established of these trade-based measures, and is aimed at closing the European market to seafood harvested through Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. Through a two stage process of warnings (yellow card) and import restrictions (red card), the EU-IUU Regulation has been applied to 27 countries, including Belize and Sri Lanka, which resulted in a ban on imports. It is now increasingly viewed as a model for other key seafood market states in promoting sustainable fisheries globally.
This study is a systematic literature review, based on 53 research peer-reviewed research articles from 2010-2022, to assess the observed outcomes of the EU-IUU Regulation in terms of improvements in fisheries management and of the socioeconomic impacts on the affected fishing communities. Despite its presented initial goal of monitoring IUU fishing practices internationally, the regulation presents significant transparency and harmonization gaps, limiting its overall effectiveness. The unilaterality of the regulation and subsequent perceived unbalanced dynamics may represent one of its key weaknesses.
Keywords : EU-IUU Regulation; policy; IUU fishing; trade-based measures; carding system; socio-economic impacts; management; power dynamics.
Citation
Courtois, M. 2022. A systematic review of the socioeconomic outcomes of the European Union’s trade-based measure for seafood sustainability. [graduate project]. Halifax, NS: Dalhousie University.