Lawmakers in Congress are considering a bill that would remedy differences between amendments made to the South Pacific Tuna Treaty in 2016 and current U.S. law, a change the American tuna industry claims is essential for its struggling South Pacific fleet.
First signed in 1987, the treaty grants American tuna purse-seine vessels access to the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of 16 Pacific Island states and governs their operations in the South Pacific. The parties have struggled to update the treaty over the years – for example, in 2003, the parties agreed on several amendments, but they never went into effect.
After years of hard negotiations, which included a threat to withdraw from the treaty altogether, the parties settled on several updates to the treaty in 2016. However, those amendments are still not reflected in current U.S. law, and only some of the changes are in effect due to a memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and the Pacific Island states.
While the terms of the updated treaty were agreed to in mid-2016, then-U.S. President Donald Trump only introduced the amendments to the Senate in 2018. The amendments then sat waiting until 2022, when the Senate finally picked them up and ratified them in July 2022. However, the amendments are not self-enacting, meaning that the U.S. must separately update its laws to reflect the ratified amendments.
The South Pacific Tuna Treaty Act of 2023 is designed to do just that.
Introduced by U.S. Rep. Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-American Samoa) and U.S. Rep. Ed Case (D-Hawaii), the bill would enact the 2016 changes into U.S. law.
“While we are operating under a memorandum of understanding, finalizing this legislation will enable us to fully implement the amendments to the benefit of our industry,” U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Fisheries Kelly Kryc said at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing 27 July.
“NOAA sees it as imperative for our ability to implement the amendments to the treaty,” Kryc said. “This treaty provides access to the most lucrative tuna fishing grounds in the world for the U.S. fleet and is a model for cooperation between the United States and the Pacific island states.”
The bill has also received strong support from the American Tunaboat Association, a trade organization representing the U.S. fleet.
“The 2016 amendments represent years of hard-fought negotiations to improve the operational conditions and flexibility for the fleet, some of which can only be realized after the necessary amendments to the implementing legislation are in place,” American Tunaboat Association Executive Director William Gibbons-Fly testified.
According to Gibbons-Fly, the biggest unresolved issue is a major fix to the “high seas” provision in the treaty. The original treaty governed America tuna fishing in both the exclusive economic zones and the high seas, but the 2016 updates removed “high seas” from the treaty, meaning that the treaty’s provisions only applied to the waters controlled by the Pacific Island states that are party to it. U.S. law was never updated to reflect that change, so American tuna vessels still need a treaty license to fish on high seas.
“Without the option to fish without a treaty license, our position in negotiations with the Pacific Island states is significantly weakened, and we have been compelled to accept terms to which we would otherwise not have agreed,” Gibbons-Fly said.
Updating the law to reflect the 2016 negotiations is essential to helping a struggling American tuna fleet, Gibbons-Fly said, noting that the U.S. purse-seine fleet has shrunk from 34 vessels to just 13 over the last three years.
“The fleet operates on an increasingly uneven playing field with respect to its international competitors – in particular China,” Gibbons-Fly said.
Vessels from China and other states are able to exempt themselves from international regulations and requirements by reflagging or entering charter agreements with Pacific Island states, he explained.
The other major change is that the revised treaty would allow American fishing companies to negotiate directly with Pacific Island states for additional access, instead of having to use the federal government as a middleman for any negotiations.
As lawmakers look to finally enact the seven-year-old amendments, U.S. President Joe Biden is pursuing additional South Pacific Tuna Treaty Annex amendments as part of the Pacific Partnerships Strategy the White House unveiled last fall. As part of that deal, the Biden administration has pledged to request USD 600 million (EUR 547 million) from Congress for an economic assistance agreement to “support fisheries economic development, collaboration on climate resilience, blue economy, and maritime security.”
A House report on the annual appropriations bill for the State Department and foreign operations includes USD 60 million (EUR 54.7 million) for the South Pacific Tuna Treaty.
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock / Peto Laszlo
