Conference: Marine Environmental Politics in the 21st Century: MacArthur Program on Multilateral Governance, Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
Paper Abstracts:
Philip Steinberg
Department of Geography, Florida State University
Political economists studying environmental regulation have focused their attention on what James O'Connor calls the "ecological contradiction of capital": capitalism's tendency to exploit nature at an increasingly unsustainable rate. Belatedly recognizing this contradiction, collective environmental governance regimes have formed whereby individual producers are compelled to adopt "green" practices so that nature will continue to provide the bounty that enables fixed investments to generate economic rents. In particular, multilateral governance since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) has turned toward private industry as the agent of self-regulation. The recent formation of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), a partnership between the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the multinational food corporation Unilever, extends to the sea this governance system that seeks to undermine capital's ecological contradiction.
The MSC is emerging within the context of three competing marine resource governance strategies: formal or informal coordination of state legislation among interested parties; compliance agreements coordinated by the United Nations system; and industry self-regulation, as exemplified by the MSC. In this paper, we will investigate the advantages and disadvantages of these three approaches as well as the social forces and interest groups supporting each regulatory strategy. Through an analysis of these fisheries management strategies, we hope to contribute to the ongoing debate regarding the potential roles of capital and state as environmental stewards.
Under the first potential governance regime, major importing states formally or informally agree to synchronize their state legislation to uphold agreed upon standards. This approach has been used in regards to health and safety issues in fish storage and processing through application of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) quality control principles, and it has had a major impact on the global marine resources industry. Theoretically, such a system could be extended to encompass environmental practices as a component of quality control, by requiring that all marine products sold in participating countries are harvested according to universal environmental standards, regardless of the resources country of origin.
A second strategy involves the United Nations systems Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries. This Code, which is already being implemented voluntarily by some states and which will come into force when twenty-five states have signed on, complements other recent U.N. sustainable fisheries initiatives such as the Agreement Relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks. The Code sets out principles and international standards of behavior for responsible practices with a view to ensuring the effective conservation, management, and development of living aquatic resources.
The third, and newest, conservation strategy bypasses states and the U.N. system in favor of direct industry stewardship, with a "green" image provided by an environmental nongovernmental organization (in the case of the MSC, the World Wildlife Fund). The MSC is presently developing a set of guidelines to be used to certify individual fisheries that conduct their business in an environmentally sustainable manner. Corporations such as Unilever who follow the MSC's recommendations will be allowed to place an "eco-friendly" label on their fish products. Thus, although the MSC strategy is centered on corporations putting pressure on individual fisheries, the individual consumer is enlisted as a junior partner in promoting environmental stewardship. While selection of a particular regulatory strategy may be considered a technical question (i.e. which strategy will be most effective in conserving fish stocks?), we suggest that the organization of the fishing industry and the mobile nature of marine resources imbeds questions of regulation within questions of allocation and social power. On the one hand, the non-territorial nature of marine resources may make a "stateless" strategy of direct corporate regulation particularly appropriate for this industry. On the other hand, the mobility of fish resources and the location of much fish exploitation beyond the practical or legal reach of state surveillance may make it particularly important to empower states as entities that can limit corporate excesses and ensure a "level playing field." Furthermore, a governance regime that vests power in international corporate and nongovernmental entities may be especially disempowering to small-scale artisanal fishers, who have little influence over state policy but no influence over corporate policy.
Through a study of promotional material for the three regulatory mechanisms, documentation from international meetings, and interviews with relevant experts, this paper will investigate the three fishery management regimes and their implications for sustainable development. In particular, attention will be directed to the MSC approach, where stewardship is placed directly in the hands of capital (and, less directly, the consumer). We will conclude by interrogating whether a mechanism for ensuring corporate sustainability is an effective means for promoting environmental sustainability.
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Andy Thorpe: The New Economic Model and Fisheries Development in Latin America
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