Anna Ter Molen

The Atlantic Bluefin Tuna: the Available Legal Instruments to Help Prevent Its Extinction Anna Ter Molen

With the recognition of a 200-nautical-mile jurisdictional zone, or EEZ, for coastal States in the UN Law of the Sea Convention, coastal States have gained the right to establish conservation and management measures regarding highly migratory fish species, such as the Atlantic bluefin tuna, for a far wider area than ever before. Since these highly migratory species, do not remain in one particular jurisdictional area, but exist between the jurisdictional areas of multiple coastal States and the high seas, the need for inter-state cooperation is evident. This cooperation with regard to this tuna species comes in the form of a RFMO, namely ICCAT. However international criticism has grown regarding the unsustainable approach to high seas fisheries management held by ICCAT up to recent years. The decreasing health of the endangered Atlantic bluefin tuna stock has led to a 2010 proposal to include this tuna on Appendix I of the CITES Convention. This thesis will further explore aforementioned conventions, as well as the UN Fish Stocks Agreement, as regulatory mechanisms that (could) provide legal tools to create a more sustainable conservation management for the Atlantic bluefin tuna.