THE LAW ON HIGHLY MIGRATORY FISH STOCKS: ITLOS JURISPRUDENCE IN CONTEXT

INTRODUCTION The challenges posed upon international law on highly migratory species are formidable and exemplify the difficulties involved in governing common-pool resources. In spite of obstacles, the international community has successfully introduced legal standards to discipline the otherwise unregulated taking of species. Important qualifications to State sovereignty derive from the recognition that conservation of migratory species is a common concern of humankind and that States are under the duty to channel co-operation for conservation. As the 1979 Bonn Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals elaborates, Contracting Parties, Recognizee that wild animals in their innumerable forms are an irreplaceable part of the earth's natural system which must be conserved for the good of mankind, [and are] concerned particularly with those species of wild animals that migrate across or outside national jurisdictional boundaries. 1 In the context of marine biodiversity and fisheries in particular, the development of international law faces the additional legal obstacle that highly migratory fish stocks, characterizing single biological units, are subject to the different governance regimes of the high seas and the exclusive economic zone (hereinafter "EEZ"). This feature of the law, coupled with deliberately ambiguous provisions in pertinent international treaties, amplifies the potential for conflict between coastal States and distant fishing States over allocation, conservation, and management of highly migratory species. Two such conflicts have recently come before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (hereinafter "ITLOS"), namely the dispute on swordfish (Xiphias ...