Comments on: Fisheries diplomacy and the South China Sea https://www.policyforum.net/fisheries-diplomacy-south-china-sea/ The APPS Policy Forum a public policy website devoted to Asia and the Pacific. Thu, 28 Jun 2018 00:25:05 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.7 By: Meryl Williams https://www.policyforum.net/fisheries-diplomacy-south-china-sea/#comment-9423 Tue, 25 Jul 2017 10:32:05 +0000 https://www.policyforum.net/?p=19056#comment-9423 I explored the question of regional fisheries agencies in Southeast Asia a few years ago (Williams 2013), specifically looking at SEAFDEC as the fisheries technical arm of ASEAN, the Coral Triangle Initiative and the RPOA-IUU. Establishing a regional fisheries management organisation seems still a distant possibility. The existing regional fisheries bodies are technical in nature, and made up of different mixes of country members. The serious bilateral disputes between the region’s countries, unresolved border issues and the complexity of the fisheries issues are impediments to a regional RFMO, which anyway may not be the best solution to the regions fisheries problems. To quote what I said and which still applies: “Major obstacles to a regional fisheries solution include the size, extent and complexity of the fisheries concerned and the fact that negotiations would involve more than twenty interested states, among which unresolved political issues, including disputes over maritime borders, exist,”

Williams, Meryl J. “Will new multilateral arrangements help Southeast Asian states solve illegal fishing?.” Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs 35.2 (2013): 258-283.

]]>