Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law denouncing the Convention for the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), effectively ending his country’s participation in the international scientific body.
Co-founded by Russia in 1964, ICES is a regional fishery advisory body that coordinates research on fish stocks in the North Atlantic and provides annual scientific recommendations on fishing quotas.
Russia has been at odds with ICES since 2022, when the council voted to suspend Russia indefinitely from participation in the organization following the nation's invasion of Ukraine after some member-states instructed their affiliated scientists and staff to “boycott or avoid engagement in activities where representatives of the Russian Federation are present.”
The Russian government has expressed increasing frustration with the council’s action, blaming the suspension on Baltic countries that “do not have access to the North Atlantic” and threatening to permanently withdraw from the organization if the suspension was not revoked.
"In recent years, this organization has turned into something that has become simply politically engaged and has begun to offer certain regulatory mechanisms which are not in the general interest but in the interests of individual countries that are engaged in fishing and are present in this region," Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries Head Ilya Shestakov said in 2023, according to Interfax. "Therefore, of course, the Russian Federation will not work with an organization like this one and discuss the issues of a region as important as the Arctic."
Russian state-owned news agency TASS reported that the State Duma, Russia’s legislative body, passed the bill denouncing ICES in an 22 October plenary session, with lawmakers claiming that ICES did not have the authority to exclude member states from council activities or vote on issues unrelated to its core mission.
ICES acknowledged the Russian legislation following its 24 October council meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark.
“ICES Convention allows a member country to renounce the convention,” the council said in a statement. “Under Article 17 of the convention, the Russian Federation will cease to be a delegate one year after the Danish government receives its written denunciation. The remaining 19 ICES member countries will continue to operate under the 1964 ICES Convention.”
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that member states of ICES had instructed scientists to “boycott or avoid engagement in activities where representatives of the Russian Federation are present.”
