 Dear participants, I would like to welcome you to this FAO Geneva Agricultural Trade Talks. My name is Dominique Bourgen and I am the director of the FAO liaison office in Geneva and I will moderate today's event. This is the fourth Geneva Agricultural Trade Talk event of 2022 and today event is co-organized with the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Division. Our objective is to share information on exciting and timely topics at the intersection of trade and fisheries. We have a series of event plans throughout the year. I would like to thank you for taking the time to attend our meeting today, given this very busy time in the Geneva agenda. We greatly appreciate your support and interest in FAO's work. Before starting our event, allow me to share the usual details regarding the logistics and housekeeping for this virtual session. You are invited to update your name and organization by clicking on the dots that appear in the right-hand corner of the box where your own personal video stream appears and selecting rename. This webinar will be in English only with no interpretation. It will be recorded and will later be available on our website along with the various related resources relevant to this session and the others we have as part of this trade talks series. The event is scheduled to last for about one hour, one hour and a half. We have reserved some time towards the end of the webinar for comments and intervention. If you wish to intervene, please use the Q&A module, not the chat box, can you state your name and organization or institution and we'll try to accommodate as many requests as possible. That's all for the housekeeping and I would now like to take a few moments to present FAO's work on and today's topic as well as our speaker. As I'm sure you know FAO supports member efforts to formulate trade policies that are conducive to improved food security by strengthening evidence and analysis, providing capacity development and facilitating a neutral dialogue in the spirit FAO in Geneva agricultural trade talks are based on an approach which we call the three eyes informal interactive and inspirational. Today's topic is on illegal unreported and unregulated IUU fishing. This topic is indeed very timely. IUU fishing remains one of the greatest threat to marine ecosystems due to its potential ability to undermine national and regional efforts to manage fisheries sustainably, as well as endeavors to conserve marine biodiversity. IUU fishing exploits weak management regimes, in particular those of developing countries lacking the capacity and resource for the for effective monitoring control and surveillance. IUU fishing is found in all types and dimension of fisheries. It occurs both on the high seas and in areas within national jurisdiction. It concerns all aspects and stages of the capture and utilization of fish, and it may sometime be associated with organized crimes. Fisheries resources available to benefit the fishers are removed by IUU fishing, which can lead to the collapse of local fisheries with small scale fisheries in developing countries, proving therefore, particularly vulnerable. Products derived from IUU fishing can find their way into overseas trade market, thus troubling local food supply. IUU fishing therefore threatens livelihoods, exacerbate poverty and augments food insecurity. We are very fortunate this afternoon to have some of the world's leading experts on this issue with us. Matthew Camillieri joined FAO in 2007 and is a senior fisheries officer, leading the fisheries global and regional processes team. He is responsible for the FAO code of conduct for responsible fisheries and other international fisheries instruments, especially those aiming to combat illegal unreported and unregulated fishing. Matthew served as technical secretary for the FAO technical consultations, which adopted the international voluntary guidance for flag state performance and voluntary guidelines for the marking of fishing gears. Matthew also serves as technical secretary for the meeting of the parties to the 2009 FAO agreement on port state measures. Prior to working for FAO, Matthew served as consultant to the Maltese government on fisheries management and as head of the Malta Center for Fisheries Science. Matthew graduated in fisheries sciences and ocean science from the University of Breamont, UK, where he went on to obtain a PhD in fisheries management. Definitely a key player and speaker for today's discussion together of course with our two other main speaker. Second one being Miss Alice Tipping, with the lead sustainable trade and fisheries subsidies at the International Institute for Sustainable Development. She has designed and led highly respected programs of research and policy dialogues on trade and environment issues, particularly on fisheries subsidies. Previously she works as Program Manager, Environment and Natural Resources for the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development, ICTSD. She has also been a Policy Advisor to the New Zealand Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, Second Secretary and Legal Advisor to New Zealand Permanent Mission to the World Trade Organization and Policy Advisor and Legal Advisor at the New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Alice is a Master of Philosophy in International Relations from Cambridge University, UK, and Bachelor of Law and Bachelor of Commerce and Administration from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Finally, we have Mr. Daniel Vossis, who has been representing the fishing industry for a decade at Europesh. Since 2016, he has been its managing director. Before that, Daniel worked for the Fisheries Committee of the European Parliament. Daniel is an alternate member and expert in the European Economic and Social Committee for the period 2020-25. Daniel Vossis is a member of several EU Fisheries Advisory Councils and was recently elected vice chair of WG5 of the Long Distance Advisory Council. He has a low degree from the University of Santiago de Compostela, a master degree in European Studies and a postgraduate degree in international maritime transport. Following the presentation by our distinguished expert is Excellency Professor Muamadou Ka, the permanent representative of the Gambia to the WTO will share some of his views on these topics with us. Here from our colleague Matthew, as mentioned earlier, please note, please post any question you may have in the Q&A module, we'll pass them to the speakers towards the end of this session. Thank you very much. And Matthew, the floor is yours. Thank you Dominic. And I will now share my screen. I trust you can see the presentation. Yes, but better if you, if you open it up. Yes, that's better. Yes, please go ahead. Thank you, Matthew. Okay. Okay, so a lot has already been said by Dominic in his opening statement about illegal unreported and unregulated fishing. And I just would like to stop a moment without going into too much detail about what constitutes illegal unreported and unregulated fishing. What I can say to in a nutshell is that conducting illegal unreported and unregulated fishing means that you're doing the exact opposite of what you should be doing to achieve sustainable fisheries. And another thing that I would like to mention here is that very often IUU fishing is just condensed and referred to as illegal fishing. It is important to note that there are these three components IUU. Sometimes unreported and unregulated fishing are more of a problem than illegal fishing. And it is important to recognize that it's not only about going against the rules and regulations that is conducting illegal fishing, but it is equally a problem if you have areas of the ocean, which are not regulated there are no rules. And therefore no rules to be broken, no management plans, and that of course leads to unsustainable situation. So not reporting fishing activities, not or underreporting or misreporting is equally of a problem because the extraction of resources from the sea needs to be known in order to come up with a sound management plan for the sustainability of fisheries. So these are three components that need to be addressed. And this is not only about those large vessels, maybe operating in an organized manner on the high seas and venturing into the exclusive economic zones of countries, but it also includes the smallest canoe, operating just off the coast of a country so as referred to by Dominic in his opening statement, it's found in all types and sizes of fisheries effects by diversity affects the environment, but more importantly, you know, threatens the livelihoods of those that depend on fisheries, and of course exacerbates malnutrition poverty and food insecurity. Now, clearly, these are you fishing, therefore it is so destructful that it is important that we do not have anything in place that supports are you fishing, and hence therefore this is why the discussion on the elimination of subsidies that in either directly or indirectly support are you fishing is important. Now, internationally, how is, how do we address are you fishing well over the years, ever since the United Nations law of the sea was adopted a number of other binding agreements and voluntary instruments have been developed. And just to name the ones up on the screen there those are the ones that have either completely focused on combating are you fishing or has or have provisions that are relevant for combating are you fishing. So on the law of the sea, the compliance agreement, the UN fish stocks agreement, the international plan of action to combat are you fishing. The port state measures agreement voluntary guidelines for flag state performance, cash documentation schemes, marking of fishing gear, and you see to the right of the screen that gray box with the dotted line. That refers to the voluntary guidelines on transshipment later this month in FAO a technical consultation is being convened to negotiate a new international instruments which will regulate transshipment. Now, if states were to fulfill those minimum standards that have been defined in those international instruments, then we will not be talking about are you fishing. Those instruments specify the flag state responsibility where flag states essentially need to monitor and control the vessels that they license port states, which have the obligation to ensure that they are not allowing foreign vessels engaging in are you fishing and using their ports coastal states who have the obligation to have sustainable management plans in their waters and to monitor control and survey their waters to make sure that all vessels operating there are behaving and market states have the obligation to ensure that they are not trading in fish derived from fishing. The only thing is there. The problem of course is the implementation of those minimum standards. Now at regional level, regional fishery bodies have taken on board those minimum international standards but also expanded, sometimes putting in even more stringent measures at regional level to address the specificities at regional level. The UN sustainable development goals where there are two targets that refer directly to are you fishing target 14.4 and target 14.6 As you can see we've gone over the the target there by 2020. There's quite a lot of progress that has been made. As we have we can see from this, this slide here. So indicator 14.6 point one. These with the progress the degree of implementation of these instruments that I have referred to. The degree of implementation by each of the states. Of course this is based on a self assessment and methodology that has been developed by FAO as the custodian agency for this indicator. But in a nutshell what we're seeing here is that at global level out of a score from one to five. The implementation of these instruments is four out of five. Of course one can note that the least developed countries are faring less well with a score of three over five. The developing states have registered an improvement in the implementation of these instruments, but what the message to take from this is that, and you can see that it varies between one region and another implementation still is a problem for a number of reasons which I will refer to later Focusing on the agreement on port state measures that this is a binding agreement, the most recent agreement adopted in 2009 and which came into force in 2016. And the the rate of adherence to this agreement has been the highest out of all the ocean related instruments, there are 70 parties that includes the EU. So it's nearing almost 100 countries around the world that are bound by this agreement. I won't go into detail because we don't have much time and I would like to leave space of course for questions, but essentially this is a slide that summarizes what the port state measures agreement aims to do it. It is essentially a process whereby the port state on the basis of information provided by the vessel provided by the flag state, and any other information that it can receive from coastal states to the RFMOs, etc. The port state decides whether to allow entry into port or to deny entry. If it is in port, the port state also based on a risk assessment decides whether to further inspect the vessel or otherwise. At any point, if are you fishing is detected during the inspection, then there is a denial of use of port. So in this way, you know, the postage measure agreement is based on the fact that vessels cannot remain out at sea forever. They need to go into a port even just to refuel to change crew for whatever reason not only to offload their catches. And therefore, if port states deny entry deny use of ports to vessels that are behaving badly, then there's not going to be an incentive for these vessels to continue to operate that way. The more countries that close their ports to vessels engaging in are you fishing the more it's going to be difficult for them to continue to operate. Providing subsidies will just help those those vessels continue to survive because they can spend more time trying to look for a port that will accept them in. There is not one silver bullet to eliminate are you fishing. We have a toolbox there are many tools available, and it is important that the regulation on subsidies comes to a conclusion as soon as possible, because that will be an additional issue in the tuba to combat efficient. The other message I want to put forward here is that the port statements agreement. In fact, it's not only about detecting and and investigating detecting are you fishing, either prior to entry or during the inspection, but also taking action action in denying either entry or use of port, and also taking other action on that vessel. And finally also there is a obligation for the parties to report on the outcome of the inspections and report on any actions taken. And that information, then there are another number of tools that will support this, this process this detection process monitoring control surveillance cash documentation schemes and other records like the the global record of fishing vessels What's important is that all the information that is collected on the inspection actions taken are shared to a global information exchange system under the PSMA. And that means that every day that passes the information the compliance history of vessels that are visiting foreign ports continues to increase without going into any detail. Again, we don't have time for this, but just to say that this is a system that is currently in a pilot phase. It will connect the global system would connect with any region existing regional systems, and you know the availability of information about vessels about their behavior. And the global level will be an extra extra value in combating fishing. Okay, I'll leave it there won't go into further details but the, just to say that there are two global information exchange systems one under the postage measures agreement, and the other one is the global record of fishing vessels, which will be connected to this. The PSMA system. Now regional bodies I've referred to that earlier on. There are a huge number of fisheries management organizations and other advisory bodies. Now this covered by these RFMOs, and I just want to mention, and I've referred to this earlier on that RFMOs take additional measures conservation management measures regulations resolutions if you want at regional level, and you can see that. So besides the minimum standards defined in those international instruments, RFMOs have taken a number of a number of measures as well. You can see that all the ones that were surveyed the 14 RFMOs, all of them require IMO numbers have measures against IU vessels. But at the bottom of the screen, you can see that the least popular taken up at regional level are trade related measures, for example, or cash documentation scheme so you can see that at regional level it's important that such measures trade measures to combat IU fishing need to be enhanced. Finally, I just like to touch on capacity development. One of the main reasons why implementation is being is difficult in developing countries is because of the lack of capacity to do so. The RFMO has a global program, and it focuses on supporting countries to strengthen their policy and legislation, the institution set up and capacity, monitoring control surveillance operation procedures, and supported also by training. To note that there isn't focus on one of those areas only having fantastic legislation in place without the monitoring control surveillance and inspection capacity to do what the legislation says is hardly useful and also vice versa it's not only about training inspectors, but having the laws in place to support the role of inspectors. The 55 countries have been supported since 2017. And the number of countries continues to increase. Finally, I'll refer you to three main websites that FAO maintains one general one on IU fishing, another one on the posiveness agreement, and another on the global record. I thank you for your attention and happy to take questions later. Thank you. Thank you so much, Matthew for meeting the challenge of such a comprehensive presentation in such a brief period of time. And I think you said it all, almost in your first statement when you say, are you you means opposite to achieving sustainable the three dimensions being equally important with flagging also the importance of a comprehensive toolbox. We have many elements. And there are current discussion on another element to disturb toolbox which is the agreement on on subsidies. Thank you so much, Matthew. Let me now move to our second speaker. Alice tipping from IISD Alice, the floor is yours. Thank you very much indeed Dominique. Let me just try and share my own screen and make it big for you. Can everyone see that properly. Yes. Wonderful. Well, thank you to the FAO very much indeed for the invitation to join this important webinar. Let me turn. Thank you very much indeed again to the FAO for the invitation to join. Not everyone in the audience may be aware of who the IISD is. We are a Canada based think tank, essentially we run a lot of different policy and scientific programs based in Canada but we have a large office here in Geneva in Switzerland, from where we run a lot of work on trade policy issues. We have a focus on supporting the negotiations underway at the World Trade Organization on fisheries subsidies, but we also do a lot of work on agricultural subsidy reform and agricultural policy as well. So I think I'll have a lot to talk about with our FAO colleagues. I've been asked by the organizers to help I guess to link the discussion on IUU fishing and the various international efforts to prevent it, which Matthew has presented extremely well. And to link that back to negotiations that many of you will be aware of that are underway at the World Trade Organization on a new treaty to discipline subsidies to fisheries. And I see a few names in the list, who I recognize from WTO negotiations so forgive me colleagues, you will know all of this. But what I'm going to do is that I'm going to walk through for everyone else. The text and the mechanics of one particular article in this new treaty which is article three, which deals with rules on subsidies to vessels that have been found to have been engaged in IUU fishing. I'll talk a little bit about exactly how they might be found to have been engaged in IUU fishing. But just to give you a sense of the context, so article three of this treaty talks about subsidies to IUU fishing. Article four talks about subsidies to overfished stocks, so stocks over which there's already a determination that it is in an overfished condition. And article five is a broader collection of rules that is intended to discipline subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and to overfishing more generally. And of course, there's special and differential treatment for developing countries woven in throughout this agreement. And as Matthew rightly said, these negotiations have been underway for many years. The words overcapacity and overfishing are taken from the very original mandate, which was agreed back in 2001 and then in 2005. And I couldn't agree with Matthew more when he says that it's really past time to finish these negotiations and I know that there's an intensive week of discussions planned for next week. And we're hoping to see, I guess, some signs at the end of that week that some of the harder issues have been finalized. And one word of perhaps encouragement as I move into article three is that of those three articles that I talked about on IUU overfished stocks and overcapacity and overfishing. This article is pretty stable, right, is what negotiators generally call stabilized. And I'll be going through it in some detail because I think it's important for all of us as policy makers and policy followers to understand the quite delicate technical and diplomatic compromise that's been reached in crafting these rules. And so forgive me if there are a lot of words on the screen but you'll see as I go through just how carefully some of those words have been chosen. So, article three. The basic approach in this article of this draft treaty is that there would be a prohibition of subsidies that's triggered by a determination of IUU fishing. But in on the other side kind of to counterbalance that relatively strict prohibition, the government providing the subsidy gets to decide how long the prohibition lasts. It might be short, might be long, but there is a minimum in the text as well. So those of you who know the negotiations well will know this, but just to kind of just step you through it so the basic rule subsidies are prohibited for vessels or for operators. The vessel or the operator is the subject of an affirmative determination made by a coastal state or a flag state or an RFMO Matthew was talking about this. When one of those entities makes an affirmative determination that a vessel or an operator has been engaged in IUU fishing. In accordance with that state or RFMO rules, then that is the determination that triggers the prohibition of subsidies. One interesting little point to note is that the subsidy prohibition applies to the same entity that is the subject of the determination. And by that I mean, if the determination applies to an operator of several vessels, the subsidy prohibition also applies to that operator. If it applies to a particular vessel, then the subsidy prohibition only applies to that vessel. So designed to be a degree of congruence there. So an affirmative determination triggers a subsidy prohibition. And I'll get to the grace period perhaps might talk about the next detail. But a determination has to fulfill a number of specific procedural steps, and many of you those who are in government and who are familiar with fisheries policy will understand why there is a degree of restraint placed in the treaty on the determinations that can be made. And this was essentially the product of tensions and concerns between nations that have very large fishing fleets and those that are coastal states. The coastal states involved in the negotiation very much wanted the ability to have determinations trigger a subsidy prohibition. Those members with very large fleets were quite concerned that any kind of determination based on any amount of information or not could trigger the subsidy obligation. So there's a degree of control written into the treaty about what a determination has power determination has to be made in order for it to trigger the subsidy provision. So determinations in particular those made by coastal states must be based on relevant factual information. And the coastal state has to provide the flag state of the vessel and the subsidizing member of the vessel if they know who that is with a notification, either that the vessel has been detained or that an investigation has been initiated information about what the vessel was found doing. And what the applicable laws were so an indication of what the problem is and an opportunity for the flag state and the subsidizing member if you know who it is to exchange relevant information with the coastal state that can be taken into account in the process of making the determination. So there's an interesting balance right here and a sense that a determination needs to follow a degree of due process and they included that word and then took it out because it was a bit too fuzzy. But a degree of understanding about what you process a determination should follow in order for it to trigger an obligation under this agreement. Now important to note, nothing in this agreement obliges members to make IUU determinations that is entirely a sovereign decision if you're a flag state or coastal state entirely an RFMO decision if it's an RFMO. And nothing in this agreement, including these procedural steps can be used to obstruct or delay a determination. Right. So you can give the flag state an opportunity to provide information. Fine. But if they choose not to that's not a reason to delay making your determination. So again there are there are footnotes which help to counterbalance the degree of control essentially the coastal states and flag states have. So, on the other side, assuming that your determination meets all the procedural steps it triggers an obligation to withdraw subsidies from the vessel involved. Now the subsidizing member can decide how long that provision should last. And they must consider so this is an obligation they must consider the nature gravity and repetition of the infraction. And so that's an interesting way of ensuring that if it is an extremely serious and that's repeated series of offenses. There's an implication that the prohibition should last longer right you must consider the gravity and repetition and deciding how long the prohibition has. The provision also can't be too short, according to the treaty so it needs to last at least as long as the listing of a vessel last or as long as the original sanction remains in place. So essentially, you can see here there's a careful multiple very nuanced degree of control established between the coastal state or the flag state or they are for more than might be establishing the determination and what the subsidizing member can do. Very interesting point here that links back to the points that the Matthew was making about port states. There was a long discussion in the negotiation about which entities should be allowed to make determinations that would then trigger the subsidy provision. In the end they ended up with coastal state as you've seen, or a flag state or an RFM or some members IU the port states should be included in the list and should be allowed to make IUU determinations that would trigger a subsidy obligation. Until a number of members pointed out that port states don't make IUU determinations per se. And so this is the point that Matthew was making I think kind of the orange bubbles on his very good slide said said everything except IUU determination. And so the point here is that what we have instead is a sort of an indication an obligation but then a role for port states that's a bit that's similar to but not exactly the same as the others. The other role here is that we're a port state member of the WTO notifies a subsidizing member that it has clear grounds to believe a vessel in one of its ports has engaged in IUU fishing. The subsidizing member shall give due regard to this information and shall take shall take but shall take such measures or actions in respect of its subsidies as it deems appropriate. So there's a there's a sort of a soft connection established in the treaty there. One thing I didn't know, which I just learned from Matthew is that the implementation of this rule is going to be greatly facilitated. I think by the port state measures information exchange system, because until I knew that that existed. I was not sure exactly how a port states were going to communicate with subsidizing members about the information they had. I rapidly changed my talking points and I'm now somewhat more more confident about the impact that this particular rule has had. So, I'm going to stop there I think I've drawn the links and established the important the IUU fishing element is in the fisheries subsidies treaty. I'm leaving in email addresses there, in case anyone else is interested in the negotiations themselves, but I'll leave it there for now, and would be delighted to take questions. Thank you very much. Alice for presenting so well the link with the all IUU fishing is positioned in the draft WTO fisheries subsidies agreement so thank you very much for that. And let's now move to our last speaker. Mr. Daniel bosses from Europe. Daniel, the floor is yours. Thank you and good afternoon everyone. I will try to share my PowerPoint. I'm going to enlarge it. I hope you can see it. All right, so I will continue now. So, thank you very much to FAO for inviting me to the trade talks on IUU fishing. Today, I will be making a presentation from an industry perspective, and particularly from European Union perspective, given that this is the field of my expertise. For those of you who are not familiar with Europe. Europe is the European organization representing the European fishing industry, and it's based in Brussels. So, before getting into the into the presentation, I think it's rather useful to show you some facts and figures about European fisheries. So as you may know, the vast majority of our catches take take place in our own waters in the European Union, but it's also true that around 20% of our catches come from outside our borders. And they are landed in in different countries, which are regulated by every FMO or agreements with with those countries. If we look at the market, we see that the European fishing fleet is catching around 4% of the world catch. But it's also true that the European Union is heavily depending on the inputs from third countries. I think nowadays we are actually over the 70% of the fish consuming you in the European market comes from abroad. So if we look at the species, we can see that tuna caught salmon and Alaska Pollock are the one other main species consumed in in our market. So this obviously makes clear that we need the right tools in place, and we are all familiar with the consequences of the IU. And this is very already referred to the environmental damages, not only to the fish stocks but also to the governance and to the very scientific assessments, on which we depend to to keep to provide advice and to to make decisions, and also threatening the livelihoods of fishermen, they're facing the loss of market, low prices job losses, and this is particularly worrying in in developing areas with limited capacity to control their own waters. So I missed the coming I made reference to this but the action from the different states will will will be different depending on the role that these countries are playing in different situations. So if we look at flag states, obviously they need to regulate their own fishing fleet with licenses authorization tracking devices etc. But when then we see that that is important is completely important to have a traceability full traceability of the of the catches and that can be done through the catch certification schemes. When we talk about port state control, we have really good agreement from from FAO that is actually regulating the activities of foreign vessels when they call the ports in a different country. And we will look at the coastal states, obviously they need also need to to regulate and to monitor what's what's going on in the in the seas that are next to that country. So, bearing this in mind, we see that the, that the we facing global ocean challenges, and this required involvement of all the countries and all the stakeholders in the chain, the European Union and other regions and countries, they have a huge progress in tackling efficient, but it is obvious that this is a global issue, and they cannot fight this this battle alone. If we really want to achieve the SDG 14 we need an international commitment and during action against you, and it's, it requires an action from all the levels of the supply chain from the catching sector to the to the consumer, and to have an effective system in place to tackle this issue. In our opinion, as industry, we do believe that the post state measures agreement has been a huge step in the milestone in the fight against IU. First, because it's a legally binding documents, and second because it was wisely ratified by the international community. Also, we see that in in in some important fishing countries and nations, the level of ratification and implementation is low. If we look at the European Union response to are you fishing one year before the adoption of the post state measures agreement, the European Union already put in place a complete and holistic system to tackle are you fishing, which was lately, later complemented by by by other legislation, including most recently the management of external fishing please. The European response to are you fishing is not just about port access conditions and inspections which is fundamental to tackle are you fishing, but it's also regulating the market side with a cat certificate scheme, and also is trying to open a dialogue with other countries who are not fulfilling their duties to tackle are you fishing and I think the current system is has been proved to be a fundamental tool as a driver change of the of the legislation in the second phase. Before adopting the IUU regulation in the European Union, the European Commission launch an impact assessment and then they were analyzing the possible impact of this legislation in the different stakeholders and even national authorities. In the slide for the government obviously new legislation will require new resources financial and human and also technical assistance and training, etc. When it comes to the European fishing fleet with the current system we we're risking losing fishing, fishing grounds in third countries. We're risking higher bureaucracy costs certification and higher penalties and even the elimination of subsidies to vessels that are engaging in in IUU when we look at processes and retailers. Then we see that in the short term this led to a concentration of supply insecure sources. We see a lot of cost certification requirements, etc. If you look at private labels or private certification schemes. We see in the impact assessment that they are not heavily impacted by the legislation because it's not addressed to is addressed to operators and not to consumers. And second because we are certifying legality and not sustainability. On the level of acceptance of the IUU regulation I would say that it's been high by the industry. It is true, as I explained that the new legislation will come with new requirements, bureaucracy and costs, but we do believe that in the long run, the advantages and the benefits throughout by the new legislation. We are actually benefiting and welcoming the new the new standards in in fisheries legislation. And why do we say this but because thanks to these regulations we can eliminate illegal fishing practices and unfair competition is actually benefiting the state of the fish stocks. We are also benefiting the image of the fishing industry, which as you may know in the European Union we have a lack of generational change and attractiveness of the sector. As was presented by Mrs. Tipping, this is very much linked to the WTO negotiations on fish subsidies. I understand in that that the governments are making huge progress, particularly on the article three that was presented in the in the previous presentation. And, well, the idea would be as I was presented that vessels and operators that are engaging in a efficient should not longer offer at least temporarily not eligible for funding. In the case of the European Union, this is already the case. Our operators, those who have committed serious infringements, they cannot apply for European funding one year prior to the to the data application and five years after the final final payment of the of the subsidy. And even if the court cases or cases with with administration, those authorities they may decide to actually extend or even make it permanent the ban on access to to to public aid. It's not from that the the determination has to be affirmative and based on a final decision by the flag coastal or everyone authorities that is actually providing our operators with with more legal security in these cases. As explained in the in the previous presentation, I do think that this is quite a balance now between the competences and the level of involvement of the flag and the coastal states in the determination of the of the determination process. Concerning the scope of the disciplines and when it comes to the disciplines, we do believe that they have to apply in all the seas and in all the regions, meaning that we cannot have any location for territorial seas or any specific countries. Otherwise, there will not be a level playing field, but we do understand that for certain countries they need a certain transition period to adopt and apply the necessary legislation to to implement the WTO disciplines but also, for instance, to create a measures agreement, but this should be short and and and should be useful for these countries to implement the national the necessary legislation. These are the next steps from our point of view as as as fishing industry, we are always promoting the ratification and implementation of the fisheries convention that, as explained by Mr. Camilleri, they are already there, they exist, and they should be ratified and implemented by by all the countries. We are collaborating and pushing the European Union to use the fisheries agreements and the trade agreements with their countries to tackle efficient and to create the necessary capacity building. We are promoting, not only within the European Union but outside the advanced regulation that we have in the European Union, for instance, the cat certification schemes that are really necessary in everything most and in other in other parts of the of the European Union, we are now fully digitizing the system and making sure that is the interoperability between the member states of the European Union and third countries, and for us as a market region for inputs. It is fundamental to have better controls on on the fish that are coming in our market. As final slide and ideas, we need to make sure that there's full transparency at visibility also at fishing fleet level. And what this was mentioned already but for us is also fundamental to make a mandatory use of the I am a number to use the right monitoring and reporting tools for fishing. And to promote and still support international register of fishing vessels under FAO to publish licenses and authorizations specifically for the extent of please operating in international waters and in the sets of third countries to strongly regulate if not ban transshipments in the in the high seas. And finally, and I think this is a successful story, the institutional cooperation between the different United Nations agencies, we see for instance the working group on IU between FAO, ILO and IMO and perhaps WTO should at some point join this. If it's not been done already, and also the cooperation between the different countries to harmonize controls on IU to avoid any shift in port access and trade flows. Otherwise, we will have always look holds that that some operators may get used to get used to. Well, to to trade their catches. So I thank you very much for listening and I'd be happy to take any questions. Thank you. Thank you very much Danielle indeed for giving the European perspective on this and sharing your views and concerns. It's my great pleasure before opening the floor and to answer some of the quite many questions that are coming up for the panelists. I would like to give the floor to have to his Excellency Professor Muamadou Ka, the permanent representative of the Gambia to the WTO. We are very happy to have you with us. Excellency and would be great if you could share your perspective. Thank you very much. On behalf of my delegation and myself, we thank you Mr. Dominic for organizing this very, very important event. I'm actually settling from the G77 meeting that I just came back moderating to this very important activity. I also wish to appreciate the insights that are shared by Dr. Thank you as well as Alice. Alice good to see you on the platform and and Danielle. It's a big topic and a huge lots of issues for us. The issues of the south, especially the Gambia. So, quite a number of the issues have been touched upon. I will just share some, some very quick perspectives. The value facing in my mind is, is, is a significant impediment to the achievement of sustainable wall fissures. This, this, this is crucial and I think we should all take note of that. The other point is the issue of IUU goes beyond a country, a country is it has larger implications for regions and for the continent, and we have to situate it that way if we isolated as a, as a country issue, we missed the point. The fissures sector undoubtedly has imminent immense potential to contribute to poverty, reduction and improvements of livelihoods and socioeconomic benefit. I think we all agree on, on, on that. Millions, millions of Africans and, and peoples of the South depend on this sector for their livelihoods and nutrition. So what is at stake for, for us, if you situated in the rising crisis of food security. The, the, the, the issue of IUU fishing should actually be escalated on top of global agenda. And one of, one of the principles, or the one of the principal courses is IUU. But if there was no IUU issues, the risks to food security will not be there. So IUU fishing is a big risk that we confront as a continent. Because our fissures resources are being depleted at rates that we can keep up and affecting livelihoods and also causing other externalities that sometimes may not be coupled with fissures, i.e. migration, i.e. conflicts. So I would just anchor that on that. So, so, so the courses of IUU cannot be viewed from a very technical and simplistic. It has socioeconomic ramifications for our people. The unfortunate reality which some of the presenters have touched on is that most African members, including the Gambia lacks the capacity, both human and financial to monitor and enforcement of compliance of, of our natural resources. All the, all the, the needed to manage IUU and manage the risk, we don't have the capacity. We don't have the infrastructure. We can benefit enormously from the ongoing efforts of FAO in the space of digital infrastructure and data infrastructure for for for management and for for surveillance and for a lot for a lot and information sharing Without data infrastructure, central to national systems and regional systems, all of the capacity efforts will not yield the impact for us to manage and the risk IUU. So we have the capacity as we proper proper solutions to revisit the lack of data infrastructure, the lack of digital infrastructure given that emerging technologies that are being used are heavily data dependent and hugely smart. And once we get these things and the training. The issue of the risks around IUU can be mitigated faster and better. In the case of the Gambia and we are one of eight countries within the canary current large marine ecosystem the CCLME, which is one of the most productive of welling ecosystems to the world that represent that are represented by more than 1000 pieces of fish. So the FAO estimated the IUU fishing cost the CCLME is Gambia, Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea or Guinea-Bissau from the last figures I've seen an estimated of close to 2.3 billion per year between 2010 and 2016. The IUU fishing is characterized by activities such as what have been shared with us illegal transshipment unauthorized fishing. IUU and prohibited techniques excessive and prohibited by catch unauthorized or undeclared catches and fishing in prohibited areas or during the prohibited seasons, and we have no mechanism to manage that or to monitor that effectively. And when we do, there are other internal, I would say challenges that are more endemic in some member states, which is compromising of those that are entrusted to monitor and to manage. They're easily corruptible to for a lack of better word and so that's that's that's that's a factor the biggest challenges my country faces in combating IUU in the absence of a proper monitoring structure, such as the National Navy. Despite being poorly equipped with resources to cope adequately with the various threats of IUU fishing was solely responsible for the protection and surveillance of fisheries. And these Navy institutions in quite a number of our countries, including Gambia, do not have the capacity do not have the resources to manage our waterways and our stock. Those should be redirected in terms of how we can step up the capabilities and the capacity, both from the human side, and from smart infrastructure, and to create capabilities around data and information infrastructure to. We have good data infrastructure good digital mechanism using emerging technologies, we can mitigate the lack of adequate capacities that will take time to build up so technology could be a very important catalyst. I must say in June 2021 through the sector support of the European Union Sustainable Fishering Partnership Agreement. The Gambia was able to establish for the first time a fisheries monitoring center and we're very grateful to the European Union. And we're looking forward for the opportunity for partners and friends of the Gambia to strengthen this FMC to strengthen and scale it and equip with equip it with smart technology to be able to be a national hub that can that can connect to regional mechanisms and global mechanisms for information sharing. At the national level. We're taking steps, albeit very modest one with very limited tools necessary to combat IUU in light in line with our international commitments. We have a partnership with FAO, and we appreciate all the support we continue to get from FAO. Sometimes I wonder without that support, where we will be. So we will continue to work with FAO to strengthen our collaboration and build a sustainable fisheries ecosystem. We have opportunity next month and I'm sure Alice is on top of that. When WTO ministers meet to agree on fisheries subsidies. The fisheries subsidies agreement is quite crucial and will be among other things to eliminate subsidies for IUU fishing. It should be a major major step in the global fight to combat IUU. It's a collective efforts that we must achieve in this upcoming MC12. We appreciate the continuing intellectual contribution and analytical knowledge sharing that comes from the ISD. Your insights, my delegation in particular find them very useful and helpful to guide us when we engage in an in balance capacity and knowledge perspective. I think our partners and friends must understand the lack of equity in terms of engagements and negotiations. We can also reflect on the inherited mechanisms that we are never in favor of protecting our waters or our ocean economics. And now that there is a rise dependency in a large increasing percent of fisheries resources from our waterways. It is important for the negotiations and the engagements not to be a zero sum game, but rather a positive sum game to fix the anomalies and the lack of equity among member states in the south and in the north. The point that Matthew, I think it was Matthew's presentation that ended up our collective efforts and FAO leadership to help us revisit the policy regimes and legislations in our member states and make them more compliant and aligned with policies and and legislations that can facilitate sustainable mechanisms around food security and the centrality of fisheries for securing food as well as nutrition and health. The current policy regimes and legislations are not in the best of perspectives to grow the sector and help us protect the IUU that poses a risk on food security and nutrition and livelihoods. The second point that was mentioned by Matthew, which I appreciate, which is this issue of institutional arrangements and the architecture of fisheries in the ecosystem of the economic triggers for food security, livelihoods, employment, empowerment, and how it brings gender into that arrangement and also how these institutional arrangements are friendly to attract youth participation for employment. So I think there is quite a bit that needs to be done in revisiting and disrupting the institutional arrangement and situated in a much more innovative way. The other is capacity. The way is capacity and technical assistance where being unleashed to our member states over the years. I would say in my humble opinion, have not resulted in the intended purposes of why they were put together in the first place. They are not really building truly a sustainable capacity and competencies to create the same values of fisheries that other parts of the world have managed to benefit. If we fix the capacity and redo it in a disruptive way and make it more substantive. It will begin and build it around the value chain to rebuild and reignite the fisheries ecosystem with capacity and competencies to manage IUU. I think we will go a long way. CCS and operational procedures are very weak. If they exist at all, I don't consider some of these and maybe Matthew, you may disagree with me or maybe agree with me. At best they don't exist. I'm just putting it rather boldly. And it's a crux of the problem. Which also need to be to be addressed. So we tend to sometimes lose and get into the forest and resort into self interest or national interest when it comes to IUU. But the cost is reclusive. Even those that are violating and gaining they eventually lose. So this lack of flexibility to reach a reasonable agreement and outcome will eventually cost the world. Because if livelihoods continue to be affected and poverty continues to elude us, it will be everybody's problem. Because of subsidies, there's not much time to really get into it. But all this fixation on on subsidies needs to be visited in the context of an equity. The cost that it creates on courses far outweigh the intended purposes of these subsidies. I hope I've been provocative enough as a, as a discussion. I don't think my mind is, is, is been very busy. The whole day from moderating from the GC seven so I have to quickly come and I had a lot that I wanted to put together but I've taken more time than necessary and I hope this is valuable and useful and I thank you very much for the opportunity to participate as a discussion and both the presentations of Matthew and Alice and Daniel. I find them very valuable and hope you will be able to share these presentations with us and hope we will have additional opportunities like this and broaden it to most of our countries because I think I'm dominating this is a very important engagement that we can benefit a lot. I just wish we had many more of them before the rise up to the MC 12 but we will have MC 13 coming up post MC 12. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for your, for your remark I will definitely not try to summarize all what you said but I think your, what is important is that you made this link to indeed a big risk. I u u as a big risk to food security livelihood nutrition and and indeed the importance to, to look to revisit the national regimes to have the institutional arrangements to, and to build capacity along the entire value chain to, to manage I u u, I think. Thank you so much, thanks for also providing your perspective and, and I know that you are so energetic at this advanced time of the week so I wonder if it would have been Monday morning. Thank you so much. And now, and now I will return to the, to the, the three speakers we had today to invite the reactions there were a number of questions that you have seen colleagues in the, in the, in the Q&A module so I would invite you to take one or two of these questions. And, and then, but then also to, to react in general, I think, to the three of you. There was a, there is a comment that has been put by Emmanuel Barange the director of the fisheries and aquaculture division in a quarter, saying that most of your intervention actually referred to the illegal part of I u u fishing. And do you think we need to broaden the messaging to ensure unregulated and unreported fisheries are also better included in our communication discussion debate. And then, Matthew, while you respond, please also, I would encourage you to refer to the issue of transshipment, which is also where FAO is also doing a lot of work, and, and which you could perhaps elaborate a bit on. But please try to, let's say four minutes each. And, and we, okay, let's go the same order we started so Matthew, please, over to you. Thank you Dominique, and thank you colleagues co-presenters here and for all the questions that have come through. Thank you excellency for that wonderful address. I do agree with you in all the elements that you have mentioned. Yes, I should reemphasize what Manuel has just referred to the fact that the beginning of my presentation that there are three components there, the illegal the unreported unregulated fishing. And they all, all three need to be addressed. It's not acceptable to have a situation where you have an unregulated fishing, because there's, there's no system in place to ensure sustainability. Just to also refer to some of the questions that have been posed here. And specifically whether I think that, you know, trade transparency would be a good tool to combat are you fishing. And, you know, there are other other suggestions here on, on what other tools could be used for, you know, market measures, etc. But my answer is everything is important. The important thing is that we have the tools in the toolbox, and we are going to use the right tool to address the right issue. We cannot hammer a nail into the wall with a screwdriver. We use the right tool for the right thing. And just a quick comment on the decision of transparency, and which is very loosely used. And yes, of course it's important to be transparent but not just for the sake of it. You know, it's not about just sharing telephone numbers of the crew publicly around the world that has hardly any use. What I would say it has to be transparency with a focus. And I think that in exchange is part of being transparent. So we may get situations where countries claim that yes they're open to transparency and they sharing the tracking of their vessels with, you know, through certain initiatives, but then they are registering or recording their vessels in the global record of fishing vessels. So it has to be a focused and effective transparency system. Again, one needs to break down the illegal unreported unregulated fishing into other components. There are different issues happening there. And as I said, you know, the illegal fishing could be something linked to organized crime. And illegal fishing could be taking place because there isn't sufficient monitoring control surveillance, and therefore, you know vessels are not monitored not controlled and they just conduct using illegal gear just off the coast. And not reporting catch is also illegal because there may be a regulation in place to report your catches. And there was also a question that was in the chat there which I saw whether are you fishing is linked to other crimes. Yes, of course, indeed. I didn't have enough time to address this but in a nutshell. What I would say is about, you know, fishing regulation about not, you know, going against the sustainability rules to achieve sustainable fisheries. But then you have other crimes. Those are crimes that are either directly related to fishing. For example, document fraud, the fact that there is a forged license, a fake license, or maybe the working conditions of the crew are not decent. Those are crimes that are of course linked to the fishing operation directly, but don't fall under fisheries regulations. In decent working conditions are go against labor laws, document fraud goes under other regulations. And then there are also crimes taking place on fishing vessels that have nothing to do with the fishing operation. They are trafficking drug smuggling arm smuggling. So those are crimes that are associated with the fishing industry and of course they need to be tackled separately, not by the fishing, the fisheries agencies, but through other mechanisms. In any case, FAO promotes very strongly into agency coordination. The fishing vessels are linked to various agencies, not only fisheries, there's customs and there's the Coast Guard and maybe phytosanitary controls and the maritime agencies and port authorities. What's important is that there is this interagency coordination to address these different aspects. I conclude on the issue of transshipment. Yes, this is important because those engaged in our fishing are operating in a clandestine manner. They're always trying to find ways and means how to find the loopholes around things. And why is something like transshipment could actually support sustainability? Because it could help a fishery to be more profitable. The fact that they would transship at sea instead of coming in and out of port, it supports good fisheries management. And so if it is not regulated or monitored, serve as a laundering machine for IUU caught fish and transshipment can take place in port on the high seas, etc. So and this is why at the end of this month, after quite a long process of studies and expert consultations, FAO is now convening a technical consultation to negotiate a new, albeit voluntary international instrument to monitor, regulate and control transshipment so that all the holes that there are could be plugged. Of course, another one will arise somewhere else, but we have to be ready to also put a stop to any other activity that could support IUU fishing. Thank you. Thank you so much, Matthew and now moving to Alice. Alice, please try to be short in your response because we are nearing the end of the session for three minutes, four minutes. I will be super succinct. There were two questions for me in the chat. One was about whether coastal states could make determinations about their own vessels. And I'll answer that briefly. The other one was whether I had any strategies or practical recommendations for mitigating IUU fishing in industrial vessels or small scale fishing. And that question I will gratefully refer straight back to the FAO because they are the people to ask about that. Yes, under the agreement a flag state can make a determination about a vessel flying its own flag, so it's own vessel. That brings me to one of the little exceptions that I forgot to come back to, which is that there is a grace period in the agreement for IUU determinations made of, made in small scale. So resource poor low income fishing within the territorial sea, the subsidy provision applies to those determinations, but it cannot be enforced for two years. So that's the flexibility for that specific amount of fishing or that specific kind of fishing. And to make the WTO agreement does not define or decide what is or is not IUU fishing, that is entirely up to the coastal state or the flag state or the RFMO. And here I link back just briefly to Manuel's question, because essentially it is for the government to decide when either illegal or unreported, or even unregulated fishing. And under the IPOA description under paragraph three, when that reaches a degree of severity that it justifies a subsidy withdrawal. So it is very much for the government to decide when an infringement becomes serious enough that it warrants subsidy withdrawal. Nothing in the WTO agreement defines how that decision should be made that's entirely the sovereign jurisdiction of the state, but all three ideas are covered. Thank you so much, Alice, very clear, very precise. Thank you so much. And now let me move to Daniel, Daniel, any comments on your side. Yes. And thank you very much for the questions I will start with the, with the last one called already by Alice. This is actually the question by Mr. Manuel Baranche. So, here in the slide, the bottom you can see the difference between illegal, unreported and unregulated it is true that it's up to the government to decide the definition, but we can see several offenses like no nationality or jeopardizing the fish stocks, etc. I think, yes, there are pretty much slings and we should broaden the discussion but, again, and as Alice mentioned, it all depends on the gravity of the of the infraction, I mean, not because you are making a mistake on the protein to surface specific species you should be considered as a criminal. And this links to the criminality. Well, when when we talk about the IU we're talking about environmental infringements. So, when we talk about human trafficking, etc. Yes, they may be related but considering environmental infringement as environmental crimes or offenses, again, it depends on the on the on the gravity and sometimes they are related yes to to other offenses like it was mentioned on the labor abuse. We saw that in many cases in for instance in in Asian countries. But again, I think we should a little bit differentiate. And then there was a question not addressed by anyone about eco labeling and how that could be that could be a driver for for tackling IU. I do agree that echo labeling is doing a lot of good in in many regions, companies that want to do better. They, they try to do this fisheries improvement programs for instance, and implement full traceability transparency in the fishery and do the right things, etc. But the thing is that those who don't do not want to comply with the rules they will not seek the assistance of the assistance of the of the labeling of the labels. So, yes, is one tool in the in the toolbox, and I think it's really useful and actually can reassure their consumer that what he's consuming he or she is consuming is not only legal but but sustainable. But I think here, we need a whole legislative framework supported by the government and regional and international authorities to make sure that what is happening at sea is is is regulated control and monitor. And so I think there's there's a role to play by equal labeling, sorry equal labels but but that cannot hamper the role of the government in controlling the fishing fleets and the fisheries. Thank you. Thank you very much. Daniel, we have no reach the end of our our session today I would like to thank you. Excellencies and colleagues for for your participation. A big thank also, of course, goes to our speakers today for for their comprehensive presentations and their remarks and their provoking remarks. Thank you, participants today. We had a lot of questions reactions to my mind this shows the relevance of the topic, the importance of the topic. And, you know, this was done in the context of the FAO in Geneva, agricultural trade talks. And I wonder if moving forward, we should not rename that agricultural and fisheries trade talks and this is something that we will be that we will be seeing a lot of interest. And thank you also, Ambassador for giving us some of the ideas on on on on the importance of that and also for for referring to the work that is done by by the FAO itself, and an FAO within its mandate of being working on technical advice on the development of international instruments as was mentioned by by Matthew but also in terms of information and evidence building we didn't refer I think to the Sofia, the state of food, the fisheries and and aquaculture research research so an important document, but FAO also is a forum for discussion and a key player in in capacity development so we will come back, we will come back to you to your on the topic of fisheries will reflect with our colleagues from the fisheries and aquaculture division of course engaging with you our partners and see how we can conceive a series of structure dialogue on the topic with that I thank you very much, and I wish you all a great weekend. Thank you. Bye.