When on the open ocean on a fishing vessel one certainly feels rather lonely amidst the waves and (in the polar regions) the sea ice. But although the vessel may appear to be like a needle in a haystack, it cannot be considered as such, because regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs) in many high seas areas govern fisheries activities.
The Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) is such an RFMO and apart from Canada and the European Union one of the main protagonists of the present volume. While not dealing with the polar regions as such, but rather with the marine areas east of Labrador and Newfoundland, it is nevertheless of importance in gaining important insight into the political charging of international cooperation in fisheries management, certainly relevant for fisheries regimes in the polar regions. But one might be easily deceived by the subtitle of the book which refers to Canada's fisheries relations with the European Union, 1977–2013, because it only focuses on the NAFO and leaves out other RFMOs in which Canada and the EU cooperation, namely the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC), the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO) and the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). While the former is mentioned on some instances, the two latter do not find mentioning at all. Thus a different title of the book that better reflects its content would have been beneficial.
The authors take the reader on a truly interesting journey through the difficulties of fisheries governance in the NAFO regulatory area and show how Canada and the European Communities (which the authors refer to as ‘EU’ throughout the book for the sake of convenience) have struggled to build and maintain a cooperative relationship especially with regard to dealing with the problem of overfishing. Especially the incident of the arrest of the Spanish vessel Estai by Canadian authorities for violating quotas on turbot in the NAFO regulatory area in 1995 marks a turning point in these relations as it exposes the enforcement difficulties of NAFO, the disability of the EU to control its own fishing fleets and the special role Canada played in protecting its fish stocks. While this ‘turbot war’, as it is often referred to, was resolved peacefully, armed confrontation was indeed a possibility.
Throughout the book this reviewer cannot shake the feeling of a bias towards the Canadian side of the complex issue of fisheries management, especially since the authors are also the writers of the article with the lurid title ‘How Europe came close to killing the Atlantic fishery’ (Barry and others Reference Barry, Applebaum and Wiseman2014). After all, two of the authors were at least partly involved for the Canadian side in the negotiations. This sometimes leads to a picture as the EU acting rather arbitrarily. For example, the authors claim that ‘[a]lthough the Commission claimed they [the quotas] were based on science, it provided no evidence. In reality, they were based on what the fleet projected it could catch’ (page 37). Of course, it is impossible for this reviewer to disprove this claim, but at the same time the authors rely primarily on Canadian newspaper sources. But problems in finding a common ground in the fisheries seem to be based on the EU's unwillingness to cooperate, as, for instance, this sentence shows: ‘For the first time since disputes over TACS [sic] and quotas began in 1985, the EU was cooperative’ (page 46). Very little mention is made of EU-internal struggles regarding NAFO quota setting, especially after the Estai incident, which, for example, triggered legal proceedings before the Community's Court of First Instance (Franckx and others Reference Franckx, van den Bossche, VanderZwaag, Koivurova, Chircop, Franckx, Molenaar and VanderZwaag2009: 270–272).
At the same time, many claims brought forth in the book are insufficiently or not backed up by sources, but seem to rely solely on the authors' interpretations. For example, on page 90 the authors ascribe the EU's inspection regime of the first years of the 2000s an inherent flaw with regard to the practicalities of inspecting vessels. While this may certainly be the case, no source is provided that could substantiate this allegation. Unfortunately the authors make no reference to the adoption of the EU seal products trade regulation in 2009 in their treatise. This is surprising as they do indeed consider the 1983 seal pups directive and its negative effects on negotiations between Canada and the European Communities (see page 26). After all, the 2009 regulation and its implementing regulation of 2010 triggered the dispute settlement procedure under the World Trade Organization.
Despite the criticism that I ushered, the book follows along the path that Donald Barry has taken in his book Icy battleground (Barry Reference Barry2005) by providing a chronological analysis of events that led to or constituted a certain development. A slightly more balanced portrayal of the events, for example by citing Spanish or more other European newspapers, and better sourcing would have substantiated the book's academic integrity. As is, the book cannot be entirely decoupled from a politically charged environment and when delving into it, the reader should bear this in mind.
