The National Security Imperative to Tackle Illegal Fishing

A fishing boat in the port of Hong Kong. (https://pxhere.com/en/photo/171051; CC0, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) Editor's note: This piece originally appeared on Order from Chaos . Over the last few years illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing  has become more recognized as a national security concern . At first glance, fish hardly seem to be on par with other cutting edge national security issues — cyber , space , artificial intelligence , drones , nuclear proliferation , and perhaps most importantly the return of strategic competition  now commonly referred to “great” power rivalry  (although perhaps not for long ). But in the years to come, make no mistake, fishin’ may indeed become an increasingly important mission for the United States and its security partners and allies around the world, and most certainly those in the Indo-Pacific. To succeed in this mission, the Biden administration should lean on the U.S. Coast Guard to do what it does best, especially in the Pacific, where Chinese fishing fleets do double-duty as maritime militias that threaten and intimidate the fishers from neighboring nations. The administration should also continue to develop counter-IUU bilateral agreements, including those that may allow prosecuting masters of vessels that commit “grave breaches.” It may also need to make a hard choice between partnering with China’s neighbors, or with China itself, to best address this threat. Fishing as an Industry Fishing , a $401 billion global industry, provides 20% of the protein intake for nearly half of the world’s population, and global fish consumption has been on the rise for almost 60 years. Yet 93% of the world’s fish stocks  are fully exploited, overexploited, or significantly depleted, and global climate change  is adversely affecting stocks. It’s axiomatic that sustainment requires effective management . The problem is that fish move, so for management to be truly effective it must be consistently applied both regionally  and, really, around the world. In other words, country A’s strong fisheries management practices can be undermined  by country B’s if the latter is unwilling or unable to implement strong practices — or worse, if it actively or tacitly condones IUU fishing. Enter: China Chinese fishing practices present a truly unique and dire IUU threat. First, China boasts the world’s largest fishing fleet . It uses this fleet, to devastating effect, to meet its population’s huge demand  for protein. It also provides generous subsidies , which has incentivized the rapid proliferation of large, capable, “distant water” vessels  that can harvest staggering amounts  of catch in a single voyage, often by dragging the ocean bottom  without regard  to fish type, age, or quantity limits. When working together in fleets, these vessels are rapacious. Chinese-flagged fishing vessels range the world over in search of catch and are notorious for fishing within other nations’  — especially developing nations’ — exclusive economic zones (EEZs) . Most recently, a huge Chinese fishing fleet, estimated to have 350-400 vessels , plied the waters near the environmentally sensitive Galapagos islands — a UNESCO World Heritage Site  — and so overwhelmed the government of Ecuador’s ability to respond  that Ecuador requested U.S. Coast Guard assistance  to protect its EEZ. This fleet then moved south into Chile’s EEZ , where it continued to operate as late as December 2020 in the face of an active response  from the Chileans and a strong rebuke from then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Shortly after, Pompeo also imposed visa sanctions  on certain Chinese officials associated with China’s malign maritime activities, including IUU fishing, in the South China Sea. The presence of this fleet has most recently resulted in a new sustained regional response : Operation Southern Cross. While China sometimes attempts to strategically deny oversight for activities of its distant water fishing fleet in much the same way that Russia denied responsibility for the activities of armed actors during violence in the Crimea , China takes the opposite tack in the South and East China Seas. There, its fishing fleet doubles as the sanctioned People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia . This militia has a history of working in a coordinated fashion to harass and bully China’s neighbors’ own fishing vessels  in disputed maritime territory  and, in some cases, those neighbors’ EEZs . It’s increasingly clear that these maritime militias are part of a concerted Chinese “gray zone”  effort to exert strategic influence  throughout the region. The Operational and Legal Challenges of Fisheries Enforcement IUU fishing is an exceedingly difficult challenge. First, the operational dynamics are significant. Patrol vessels and aircraft (and their crews) are expensive. Few countries can afford them or dedicate such resources to fishing regulation in meaningful numbers. And the tyranny of distance plagues EEZ protection, like it does other maritime issues. This makes developing and maintaining the domain awareness across thousands of miles of ocean necessary for effective fisheries management a Herculean (or perhaps more accurately Sisyphean ) task. Further, bad actors actively frustrate state attempts to build that awareness, through tactics like disabling required tracking devices ; deploying difficult-to-detect, untended gear like high seas drift nets  that indiscriminately kill marine life; and using on load/offload “motherships ” to mask the type and size of fish they catch. The international legal landscape also makes it difficult for states, beyond a vessel’s flag state , to engage in IUU fishing enforcement. Thus, often only China  can address Chinese IUU fishing. China is largely not interested in doing so, although that might be improving slowly  as China develops aquaculture capabilities and recognizes that sustainment and better transparency may be in its best long-term interests. Moreover, several other international legal norms complicate countering IUU fishing. First, Article 73 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)  prohibits criminal prosecution of fishing offenses in the absence of an express agreement between two states authorizing such prosecution. While the United States has signed but not yet ratified UNCLOS, it considers the vast majority of the treaty to accurately reflect the current state of customary international law as it relates to the law of the sea . Next, there are several broad-reaching, multi-lateral international agreements like the United Nations Fish Stocks Convention  and many specific regional fisheries conventions  that provide for enforcement remedies like catch and vessel seizures, but consistent with UNCLOS, do not typically allow for criminal prosecution. Domestically, the Magnusson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation Act  and the Lacey Act  provide the substantive law for fishing violations in the United States EEZ, but aren’t particularly helpful elsewhere. On a positive note, Congress recently passed the Maritime Security and Fisheries Enforcement (SAFE) Act directing the U.S. government to start the process  of focusing the efforts of relevant federal departments and agencies on the challenge posed by IUU fishing. Options The Biden administration can adopt several measures to better address the national security challenge posed by IUU fishing, both in general and regarding China. First, the United States could look to increase its use of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as force multipliers, especially in the realm of improving the quantity and quality of maritime domain awareness information . The European Union’s partnerships with  NGOs to extend its fisheries management capabilities are a good model. But Washington should exercise great discretion on who to partner with and what activities the government sanctions  — there are some cowboys  out there. Second, the administration should ensure the maximum availability of Coast Guard forces  in the Pacific theater : both cutters  and law enforcement detachment  boarding teams that are embarked aboard Navy ships and perhaps even integrated  within deployed U.S. Marine Corps forces . An increased Coast Guard presence will help model what responsible maritime behavior should look like, and provides the operational commander in theater with flexible options  to prevail across the full spectrum of strategic competition . In other words, there should be lots of Co
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