IN A NUTSHELL
Ratifications of the June 2022 Fisheries Subsidies Agreement
May 13, 2024
Total ratifications = 75
(= 46% of all members, = 68% of the first target)
First target (two thirds of 164 members) = 110
Additional ratifications needed to reach two thirds = 35
Members that have not ratified = 88
Eventual target (agreement applies to all members) = 164 members (or 163 ratifications*)
● The agreement takes effect after two thirds of the membership have ratified (“accepted”) it. Even then it only applies to the countries that have ratified
● The WTO’s up-to-date list of ratifications is here
* So long as the EU’s ratifications count as 27 (the number of EU member states) instead of 28 (member states + EU itself, also a WTO member), total ratifications cannot exceed 163
By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED JUNE 7, 2023 | UPDATED MAY 14, 2024
June 17, 2023 is already buried in the distant the past. That was the first anniversary of WTO members agreeing by consensus to curb fisheries subsidies. It was also the original target for enough countries to ratify it so that deal could take effect.
That target was then moved to the February 26–29, 2024 Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi. When that was going to be missed by a substantial shortfall, the deadline was quietly dropped.
Instead the Ministerial Conference was turned into a celebration of the ratifications that had been submitted, including nine at the conference. That brought the total to 70, still 40 short of the 110 needed to activate the agreement in ratifying countries.
It may take many more months, if not a year or two, to reach 110 — two thirds of the membership. Even then 53 countries will still have not ratified the agreement, meaning it will not apply to them. (Ignoring the likelihood that by then the WTO is likely to have at least two more members.)
COUNTRIES THAT STILL HAVE NOT RATIFIED THE 2022 AGREEMENT
MAY 13, 2024
Afghanistan, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Democratic Republic Congo, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Eswatini, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Honduras, India*, Indonesia*, Israel, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyz Republic, Lesotho, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico*, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco*, Mozambique, Myanmar*, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, North Macedonia, Oman*, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Qatar, Saint Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent & the Grenadines, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand*, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Uganda, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam*, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe (88)
* In the top 20 fishing nations by catch size (FAO data)
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Celebrations | Targets and benchmarks | Significance of ratification | More data
Celebrations
Despite the celebrations on the first anniversary and at the 2024 Ministerial Conference, the deal remains a significant but incomplete agreement still needing more WTO members to ratify it, otherwise the provisions that were agreed cannot be implemented.
In addition if any developing country wants to benefit from assistance from a special fund set up under the 2022 Fisheries Subsidies Agreement, it must ratify it too.
Almost two years ago when the deal was struck, it was greeted enthusiastically by all WTO members, even though the agreement had a crucial piece missing.
Ratifications have arrived at the WTO in fits and starts. On October 23, 2023, the WTO website reported a “surge” in ratifications. Seven arrived. On February 26, 2024 the first day of the Abu Dhabi Ministerial Conference, it reported a “wave” of new ratifications. Eight arrived, with two more by the March 1, the end of the Conference.
In both cases the new ratifications only just compensated for a slow-down over the previous weeks. It was almost as if countries had held back to hand in ratifications during the ceremonies.
It’s quite a serious situation for the livelihoods of those who depend on a healthy ocean and sustainable stocks
— Angela Ellard
WTO deputy director-general
It looked bad from the start. Only 10 days before the anniversary, just seven countries (4% of the membership) had ratified. Then the numbers started to pick up, with the EU ratifying as a bloc, but the rate was still slow.
By the first anniversary, only 36 WTO members out of 164 (about 22%) ratified the agreement, almost all of them in the final days. That was just under one third of the number needed for the agreement to take effect.
In chronological order the ratifiers before the first anniversary were: Switzerland, Singapore, Seychelles, US, Canada, Iceland, UAE, EU (counted as 27), Nigeria and Belize. China and Japan ratified a few days later.
Targets and benchmarks
One of the questions that has come up is whether this is unusually slow. Is the WTO membership as committed to the deal and to tackling overfishing under UN Sustainable Development Goal 14 Target 6 as it has repeatedly proclaimed? How committed are members to the WTO itself?
And yet the target was ambitious.
“We are aiming to secure this agreement’s entry into force by the 13th Ministerial Conference next February in Abu Dhabi,” WTO deputy head Angela Ellard told members on June 21, 2023.
She was opening an event — “WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies: Race to Entry into Force” — to mark the anniversary and encourage countries to ratify more quickly.
In subsequent months she repeated the aim, adding the hope that many more ratifications would arrive when senior officials met in Geneva on October 23–24, 2023.
Achieving the February 2024 target would have required a sharp acceleration in the pace of ratifications. By October 23, 2023, another 59 were still needed with only four months to go. That was one new ratification every two days or so. And as expected, the target was missed, by 39, over a third of the 110 needed.
Target quietly dropped: Achieving 110 ratifications by the end of the Ministerial Conference was no longer the aim and members fell short by 39 ratifications. Details here. Click the image to see it full size | CC BY-SA 4.0
There is real urgency in depositing instruments [of ratification] for the first agreement because of the continuing and rampant deterioration of the ocean of fish stocks.
It’s quite a serious situation for the livelihoods of those who depend on a healthy ocean and sustainable stocks.
We are very hopeful that in five months, when we’re in Abu Dhabi for MC13, we are able to enter this agreement into force so that it will begin to deliver its benefits for sustainability.
— Angela Ellard, WTO deputy director-general,
press briefing, September 22, 2023
The only other available benchmark is how quickly WTO members ratified a previous agreement — Trade Facilitation — which is about streamlining border procedures for goods.
That deal was struck on November 28, 2014. By its first anniversary, 51 members had ratified the agreement, 15 more than the 36 on the Fisheries Subsidies anniversary. In other words, Trade Facilitation was 15 ratifications ahead of Fisheries Subsidies after the first 365 days.
The seven members that had ratified the 2022 Fisheries Subsidies Agreement up to June 7, 2023, were less than one seventh of those that had ratified Trade Facilitation by its first anniversary.
Those seven took 333 days. The first seven ratifications of the Trade Facilitation Agreement took 193 days.
It took 356 days for the EU to finally hand in its ratifications (counted as 27) on June 8, 2023. This brought the total to 34.
The EU had completed its internal processes more than two weeks before that. It waited until World Oceans Day before delivering the ratifications.
Five days later came Nigeria (see video on X)— where WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala comes from. Then Belize on June 16.
A day later the anniversary passed.
Perhaps that was too harsh but as even the February 2o24 deadline was missed it was clear members were in no hurry
China, the largest marine fishing nation by catch size, ratified on June 27, followed by Japan (ranked eighth, on July 3), bringing total ratifications to 38.
The slow pace of ratifications is not the only sign that WTO members’ priorities lie elsewhere, even in trade. But it is one that is easy to quantify and to demonstrate graphically.
To be clear, this is about countries’ priorities back home in their governments or their parliaments, wherever ratification is handled. They don’t need to wait for other countries since the deal was already agreed by consensus in June 2022. Ratification is officially called “acceptance”, and that’s all they are being asked — for countries to confirm a decision they already made.
Nor is this necessarily about countries’ missions in Geneva, although we can only hope that the missions are prodding the capitals.
There were plenty of opportunities in the fortnight leading up to that first anniversary on June 17, 2023. In the week June 5–9, negotiations took place in the WTO on the missing provisions, particularly on subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing.
The following week (June 13–16) members participated in a “Trade and Environment Week”.
The hope was that the flood of ratifications would accelerate after the anniversary and as the next Ministerial Conference approached. If not, the inescapable message would be that for most countries it really is all talk and no walk.
Perhaps that was too harsh but as even the February 2o24 deadline was missed it was clear members were in no hurry.
Significance of ratification
The Fisheries Subsidies Agreement will not take effect until two thirds of the membership ratify it. Even then, it only applies in the ratifying countries.
In other words, even the incomplete disciplines on subsidies that were agreed by consensus will not apply at all until two thirds of the membership ratify. That’s 110 out of 164.
After that, the disciplines still won’t apply to any country that has not ratified.
Nor will be benefits.
The technical assistance fund set up under the agreement is to help developing and least-developed countries implement the agreement, which they can only do if the agreement applies to them. Only if they ratify it.
See also: Is it time for WTO members to rethink how ratifications work?
More data
FISHING DATA
Chart comparing catch sizes of the top 10 countries (FAO)
Table of the top 25 sea-fishing nations (FAO)
FAO flagship publication “The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture”
Updates:
January 29; February 14, 22 and 27, March 1 and 19, May 7, 13 and 14, 2024 — adding new ratifications; minor edits reflecting the passing time, including the 2024 Abu Dhabi Ministerial Conference
January 1, 2024 — adding the list of countries that had not ratified; updating the text to place it at the start of 2024 instead of the first anniversary, with some streamlining
December 12–13, 2023 — adding new ratifications
October 20–24, 2023 — adding new ratifications, and text and photo on the October 23 “surge” in ratifications
September 23, 2023 — adding Angela Ellard’s quote from the press briefing, September 22, 2023, and tweaking the text to reflect that and to clarify the meaning of ratification or acceptance
July 20 to September 6, 2023 — adding new ratifications
July 14, 2023 — adding text and graphic on the target of activating the agreement by the 2024 Ministerial Conference
To July 12, 2023 — updating to and beyond the first anniversary, editing, adding new ratifications and updating the chart
Image credits:
Charts | the author, CC BY-SA 4.0
Seven ratifications on October 23, 2023 | WTO
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