The Human Rights Impacts of Fisheries Subsidies: Analysis, Implications and Recommendations (Working Draft)

Fisheries subsidies are economic policy tools used by governments to benefit the fishing industry. Depending on how they are used, these subsidies can have positive or negative human rights impacts on small-scale fishers, fishing dependent communities, workers and other rightsholders. However, human rights considerations have played a minimal role in analysing fisheries subsidies, which are often designated as ‘beneficial, harmful, or ambiguous’ based only on their environmental impacts.

While the environmental impacts and human rights impacts of fisheries subsidies overlap significantly, they are not identical. This working paper analyses subsidies through a human rights lens. In addition, the working paper identifies a number of human rights shortcomings in the recent WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies and includes recommendations and ways forward to States, multilateral organizations, and civil society in order to achieve a final fisheries subsidies Agreement that enhances rather than impedes human rights realization.

Stakeholders are invited to share feedback and comments to this working draft for consideration in the final paper. For comments or further discussion on the topic, please contact Tulika Bansal, Senior Adviser, Human Rights and Business, at tuba@humanrights.dk