碩士 / 國立臺灣海洋大學 / 應用經濟研究所 / 93 / Abstract
The purpose of this thesis focuses on setting up management mechanism for foreign-flagged longliners run by Taiwan’s nationals in response to international trend for deterring illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities. One of the major goals is to connect the system regulating Taiwan’s nationals’ running longliners flagged to foreign countries and the measures taken by international fisheries society for proceeding in parallel ways. Through this study, it is realized that various regional tuna management organizations (RFMOs) have been established for sustainable utilization of tuna resources and these RFMOs adopt conservation and management measures through process of decision making. In 2001, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations adopted an “International Plan of Action to Prevent, Deter, and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (IPOA-IUU)”, and thereafter the RFMOs adopted measures to prevent, deter, and eliminate IUU fishing. However, to escape from the domestic laws and regulations, such as tonnage replacement requirement for building a new vessel, threshold for minimum number of specific crews onboard, constraints on operation, and taxation, some Taiwan’s nationals registered their fishing vessels to foreign countries which control their vessels loosely, or are lack of capacity together with no willingness to control their vessels. At the same time, those vessels are still run by Taiwan’s nationals and became vessels with flag of convenience, or FOC vessels. In fact, there is no “genuine link” between the flag states and FOC vessels flying their flags. Once those FOC vessels were identified to be IUU vessels because of violating conservation and management measures taken by RFMOs, the flag states therefore then were sanctioned for exporting specific fish products under competence of those RFMOs. To escape from the conservation and management measures or trade sanctions taken by RFMOs, vessel owners then changed name of vessels, name of companies, or even re-flagged their vessels to other countries without membership or cooperating status of RFMOs. As a result, the international society stringently condemns Taiwan in this regard.
To prevent and deter IUU fishing in line with the trend of international society, Taiwan and Japan had a joint plan on cooperation in management of large-scaled tuna fishing vessels. In which, Taiwan established a legal channel for re-registering non-Taiwan flagged vessels built in its shipyards but run by Taiwan’s nationals so as to manage those vessels. In addition, Taiwan itself controls exportation of fishing vessels newly built in its shipyards, takes measures as a market state and port state, alarms the banks for cautiously considering and financing FOC vessels building projects, and takes measures to prevent legitimated vessels from assisting fish laundry for IUU vessels.
For deterring IUU fishing, it is found that several loopholes still exist in the current system for deterring IUU fishing conducted by non-Taiwan flagged vessels run by Taiwan’s nationals. The loopholes include the followings: (1) The continuing building of new FOC vessels so as to increase the regional fishing capacity; (2) The mechanism for controlling transshipment at sea has not been established, and therefore a loophole exists for fish laundering among FOC vessels and transport vessels for frozen fish; (3) exportation of vessels built in Taiwanese shipyards without replacement of current fishing vessels in a specific region, and thus the fishing capacity of that region increases; (4) Taiwan’s nationals have been building and operating vessels less than 24 meter in length flying foreign flags to escape from measures taken by RFMOs, and Taiwan so far has no legal control on building or exporting vessels of this kind; (5) Lack of mechanisms to justify documents provided by owners of foreign vessels applying to enter Taiwan’s fishing ports; (6)Taiwan has no legal provisions to punish its nationals who run or work for vessels flying foreign flags, and engaged in IUU fishing because of the foreign registry of those vessels. The flag state has no intentions to punish those vessels neither.
In line with international laws, it is the sovereignty of flag state in principle for controlling vessels operating on the high seas. However, the Convention for establishing Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission （WCPFC） stipulated that each member should take measures, to the greatest extent possible, to ensure that its nationals and fishing vessels owned or controlled by its nationals fishing in the Convention area comply with the provisions of the Convention. In addition, several major states, such as the U.S., Japan, New Zealand, Spain, have practiced to control their nationals for foreign investment on fisheries or working for foreign fishing vessels, which are exceptional practices outside of principle of flag-state’s sovereignty. Therefore, from the evolution of the international fisheries laws, it is indeed a trend that a state is urged to be responsible for controlling fishing activities of its nationals, even though the vessels owned or controlled by its nationals do not fly its flag.
Taiwan has to fulfill its responsibility as a flag state, and the responsibility as a market state, port state, coastal state, and member or cooperating non-member of RFMOs. Other than this, it is necessary for Taiwan to cooperate with related states and RFMOs to deter IUU fishing activities. Since its nationals run longliners flying flags of other countries, it is therefore necessary to set up a mechanism for the management of foreign-flagged longliners run by its nationals. To keep in pace with the trend of international fisheries management and improve current system, the suggestions for establishing mechanisms of managing nationals running foreign longliners are as the followings: (1) Urging the RFMOs to set up regime for limiting vessel building and replacing vessels/tonnages before building new vessels; (2) Urging the RFMOs to establish mechanisms for managing transshipment of tuna at sea; (3) The building and exportation for fishing vessels built in Taiwan should be managed no matter what the vessel size is, including the building of vessels should be permitted by the central fisheries authority and the requirement to eliminate a vessel of same tonnage in the region before building a tuna longliner. The exportation of completed fishing vessels should acquire permit from the central fisheries authority; (4) For Taiwan’s flagged vessels and vessels built in its shipyards should not be issued permit for exporting vessels under the following conditions: exporting fishing vessels to countries sanctioned by RFMOs, or countries which are not contracting parties/cooperating non-contracting parties to RFMOs. (5) Amending regulation on port state control to stipulate that the foreign-flagged fishing vessels only listed on the white lists of RFMOs should be allowed to enter into its fishing ports with required documents justified by the authorities of the flag state; (6) Amending Fisheries law to regulate nationals running foreign vessels and working for foreign fishing vessels, and to punish them if IUU fishing conducted by them were found.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TW/093NTOU5452027 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Tzu-Yaw Tsay, 蔡日耀 |
| Contributors | Yann-Huei Song, 宋燕輝 |
| Source Sets | National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations in Taiwan |
| Language | zh-TW |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | 學位論文 ; thesis |
| Format | 181 |
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