Trade Measures, IUU, and Seafood Sustainability: Examining Effectiveness, Impacts and Legitimacy

Dear Colleagues,

Under the UN Law of the Sea, responsibility for ensuring sustainable exploitation is borne exclusively by fishing nations, be they flag or coastal. Meanwhile, seafood market states are increasingly seeking to impose their fisheries policies to fishing nations through restrictive market access. These measures include requirements for seafood traceability and catch documentation schemes, identification and blacklisting of vessels engaged in illegal activities, and the prohibition on imports or blocking of port access and landings to vessels or countries that fail to meet these provisions. Spurred by the EU IUU Regulation of 2010 and the ratification of the Port State Measures Agreement in 2016, similar strategies are also being pursued by other key seafood market states, including the United States and Japan. Nevertheless, questions remain as to the effectiveness and impacts of such measures in curtailing illegal fishing, as well as the legitimacy of this form of global governance.

This Special Issue for Sustainability aims to examine these aspects of trade-based measures so that we can better shape the conducts of market states in promoting seafood sustainability. Key questions include: (1) Have such trade measures been effective at reducing the global IUU catch, and/or reducing the amount of IUU catch entering restrictive importing markets? (2) Do such trade measures work to address the underlying reasons why IUU fishing is pervasive? (3) What are the socioeconomic implications of market restrictions on fishing communities and exporting countries—particularly the impacts of trade disruptions, both real and perceived? (4) To what extent do additional regulatory burdens linked with power dynamics infringe on the sovereign rights of coastal states, and what are the implications on the legitimacy of these types of unilateral trade measures?

Authors are advised to submit a preliminary abstract, in order to receive guidance on the suitability of their paper in the Special Issue. Deadline for preliminary abstract is the 15th of August 2019. Manuscripts that receive positive feedback from the reviewers and Guest Editors will be provided with the APC discount. 

Dr. Wilf Swartz
Dr. Megan Bailey
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Global seafood markets and trade policies
• Illegal, unregulated and unreported fisheries
• Seafood sovereignty
• Traceability and transparency
• Sustainable fisheries