Fisheries Subsidies: Data-poor stocks and negative effects

World Trade Organization (WTO) members seek to fulfill the commitment made in December 2017 to successfully negotiate new fisheries subsidies disciplines by December 2019.

This lunchtime seminar aims to provide WTO negotiators with expert input on two topics relevant to a range of negotiating issues, including the prohibition of subsidies to overfished stocks and a potential ‘hybrid’ approach to subsidy disciplines.

The first presentation will focus on what methods exist for assessing the status of data-poor fisheries, and what ‘alternative reference points’ in addition to MSY, could potentially be specified in an agreement to encompass the wide variety of Members' fisheries management systems.

The second and third presentations will focus on the potential use of a ‘negative effects’ test in the disciplines; the first will provide background on the existing rules around prohibitions and effects-based disciplines in the WTO’s Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, while the second will look in more depth at the potential workability of an effects-based rule in the context of rules on fisheries subsidies, and considerations regarding its implementation.

Agenda

13:00 – 13:30             Light lunch

13:30 – 13:40             Opening remarks by Alice Tipping – Lead, Fisheries Subsidies, IISD 

13:40 – 13:55             Methods for assessing the status of data-poor fisheries by Maren Headley – Researcher, Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism

13:55 – 14:10             Prohibited and actionable subsidies in the ASCM: Rules and remedies by Charles Julien – Counsel, White & Case LLP

14:10 – 14:30             Negative effects test in subsidy rules: Workability and Implementation by Colette van der Ven – Director, Trade and Development, Emerging Enterprises pro bono program, Sidley Austin LLP

14:30 - 14:55              Open Discussion

14:55 – 15:00             Closing Remarks