Introduction

Many current debates on fisheries, food security, and safety centre on issues of policy and management. Having a practical focus, debaters rarely reflect on the norms and principles underlying their positions. It is clear, however, to a thoughtful observer that normative positions, permeate the proposed solutions and approaches, and contribute to both consensus and miscommunication alike.

This chapter presents the principles underlying the international governance of fisheries today. The perspective is analytical rather than prescriptive, the objective being to find out what currently informs governance. In subsequent chapters, where the norms for interactive governance are highlighted, the mood becomes prescriptive. There we aim to pinpoint what governance should be about.

The discussion is structured around the fundamental concerns cited in chapter 2 – ecosystem health, social justice, livelihood and employment, and food security and safety. As many of the normative positions taken with regard to issues of this kind originate from outside fisheries and have a broader application, the chapter highlights a variety of international organisations and documents. In addition, an investigation about how the precepts in these documents have filtered into the fields of fisheries is presented.

One must remember that international organisations and agreements constitute only one expression of current governance. Much of the governance that actually takes place in fisheries has different sources altogether. A comprehensive overview of governance practices, and the principles that underlie them, is, however, outside the scope of this volume.

Ecosystem Health

Ecosystem health has become a major theme of international debate, decision- making, and action. It figured prominently in the discussion on sustainable development at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro (1992) and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (2002). It is also the subject of numerous agreements, including some on fisheries, and plays a role in adjacent realms such as the regulation of international trade.

All these discussions and the agreements they have resulted in are based on an awareness that environmental deterioration is linked to human activity. The human role in environmental issues is argued to confer moral responsibility, but it also grants opportunities for remedial action.