Enforcement Jurisdiction over Foreign Fishing in the EEZ

Abstract

This Chapter examines the coastal State’s enforcement jurisdiction over fishing activities in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC), including the boarding, inspection, arrest, and seizure of vessels, the prompt release procedure, and the imposition of penalties. The Chapter argues that this jurisdiction should be interpreted by reference to the overall scheme of the LOSC, taking into account not only the rights but also the responsibilities of the coastal State, as well as those of flag States, in order to meaningfully preserve the balance of interests that is at the heart of the sui generis regime for the EEZ. However, while the balance of interests is commonly invoked in the jurisprudence on enforcement, international courts and tribunals have generally taken a narrow approach to its application, seeking to balance specific, corresponding rights of flag and coastal States in a binary equation, rather than the broader set of rights and responsibilities that underpin the EEZ regime. Faced with these limitations, as well as the practical and financial challenges of carrying out the primarily physical enforcement measures envisaged in the LOSC, coastal States have developed a range of alternative approaches to achieve the same result. As this Chapter demonstrates, these include: the conduct of cooperative and collaborative enforcement activities; a variety of prescriptive techniques to prevent and deter illegal fishing activity; and the use of modern technology to deliver cost-effective and remote, ‘no-force’ enforcement jurisdiction.