United States Reaches Agreement to Limit Arctic Fishing

• Published in: American Journal of International Law
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2018
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Faroe Islands; Canada; Greenland; Norway; Central Arctic; Iceland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/ajil.2018.32; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0002930018000325

On November 30, 2017, the United States concluded negotiations on an agreement to limit fishing in the Arctic, titled the Agreement to Prevent Unregulated High Seas Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean. Delegations from the European Union and nine countries—Canada, China, Denmark with regard to Greenland and the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Russia, South Korea, and the United States—participated in the negotiations, which began in December of 2015. According to a statement made by the U.S. State Department: The Agreement will prevent unregulated commercial fishing in the high seas portion of the central Arctic Ocean, an area that is roughly 2.8 million square kilometers in size, roughly the size of the Mediterranean Sea. Commercial fishing has never been known to occur in this area, nor is it likely to occur in the near future. However, given the changing conditions of the Arctic Ocean, the governments in question developed this Agreement in accordance with the precautionary approach to fisheries management.