FFM #5: Negotiating with Kerrlene Wills

This is the fifth episode in our future fisheries management series, which we are running in collaboration with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and the Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh.

Today’s guest, Kerrlene Wills, participated in the negotiation process for the 2022 World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement on fishing subsidies as a representative of the nation of Guayana, and has written about the resulting agreement. This is primarily aimed towards curbing subsidies for what is known as illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. It also tried curb the fishing of over-depleted populations, and vessels fishing on the unregulated high seas. A point that Kerrlene makes is that not all subsidies are the same, and therefore should not be subject to the same rules and constraints. The main category that Kerrlene highlights are subsidies that developing countries give to small-scale fishers, which are important for local livelihoods and which don’t necessarily lead to overfishing through overcaptilazition.

Kerrlene is currently the director of Ocean and Climate at the UN Foundation, and she discusses her current work with Michael, in which she is involved in efforts to decarbonize the global transportation industry trough some type of pricing mechanism along the lines of a carbon tax or a cap and trade scheme.

Resources:

Kerrlene’s website at the UN Foundation: https://unfoundation.org/author/kerrlene-wills/

Kerrlene’s article on fisheries subsidies: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4607279

WTO agreement on fisheries webpage: https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/rulesneg_e/fish_e/fish_e.htm

Guardian piece about the WTO agreement: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/21/first-wto-deal-on-fishing-subsidies-hailed-as-historic-despite-big-holes