EU Trade-Related Measures against Illegal Fishing

Front matter

ROUTLEDGE FOCUS

EU tade Related Measures against Illegal Fishing

Policy Diffusion and Effectiveness in Thailand and Australia

Contents

Acknowledgements viii List of Acronyms ix

] IUU Fishing and the Policy Diffusion of the EU-IUU Regulation 1 ANDREW M. SONG

2 How is Unilateral Trade-Based Policy Adopted and Integrated from the Perspective of Receiving Countries? Applying EU IUU Regulation in Thailand 19 ALIN KADFAK

Introduction

In the past two decades, a phenomenon known as illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing has come to the fore in policy and academic discussions. While the notion that fishing can be done against established rules — circumventing certain reporting requirements and conducted by a party who is not part of a harvesting arrangement — is neither new nor remarkable in the history of fishing, nowadays IUU has taken on added scientific salience, political urgency and economic significance. It is widely accepted that IUU fishing is harmful, and should be stopped, but there are different approaches to tackling it. Acknowledging this, this book argues that major efforts to fight IUU fishing require careful analyses if the goal is to achieve optimal results and avoid unintended consequences. The book draws on the recent experiences of Thailand and Australia to offer an empirical examination of one increasingly prominent solution, i.e. trade-restrictive measures.

IUU fishing deemed a major problem in fisheries, one with significant social, environmental and economic consequences. The extent of IUU fishing is substantial. Annual IUU landings are estimated to be 26 million tons globally, equivalent to one-in-five wild-caught fish, with illicit profits ranging from $10 to $23 billion per year (Agnew et al., 2009; Pew Trusts, 2018; Sumaila, Alder, & Keith, 2006). IUU fishing has a considerable impact on individual fisheries or fishing areas — e.g. IUU fishing caused a 39% reduction in total catches for Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) in 2000-2001 and over US$330 million annual losses in the Pacific tuna fisheries from 2016 to 2020 (Willock, 2002; MRAG Asia Pacific, 2021). Overall, OECD estimates that IUU fishing effectively amounts to 'the second largest fish producer in the world by value, after China' (Garcia, Barclay, & Nicholls, 2021). IUU fishing is, thus, a serious and direct threat to the health of global fish stocks as well as to the marine ecosystem through the disturbance of habitats and the bycatch of non-target species such as marine mammals and seabirds. Further, IUU fishing distorts economic competition, creating unfair benefit to perpetrators while disadvantaging those who fish in accordance with the law. There are also critical social costs associated with IUU fishing as it can jeopardize the livelihoods and the food security of legitimate operators and the wider coastal community. There are other social ramifications as well: IUU fishing is seen as a linchpin of inadequate labour and safety conditions with increasing linkages to transnational crime (Belhabib & Le Billon, 2020; Selig et al., 2022). As the antithesis to sustainable ways of fishing, the concept of IUU fishing gained the attention of high-level policy makers, as evidenced by the 2015 formation of the US federal government Task Force on Combating IUU Fishing and Seafood Fraud (co-chaired by the US Departments of Commerce and State and made up of a broad range of other federal agencies), for example. Today, the idea of IUU fishing amounts to a powerful and all-encompassing narrative that calls for rapid and robust mitigating action to ensure ocean health and achieve a fair and thriving fishing future.

The idea of IUU fishing is frequently linked to a definition offered by the 2001 FAO International Plan of Action to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (FAO, 2001). This commonly cited definition was formulated on the experiences of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), whose high-seas focus (ie. a threat to the lucrative Patagonian toothfish fishery; see Grilly et al., 2015) specified illegal fishing as an activity conducted by vessels of countries that are parties to a regional fisheries management organization (RFMO) but operate in violation of its rules, or operate in a country's waters without permission. Unreported fishing is defined as a practice whereby caught fish are not reported or are misreported to the relevant national authorities or the RFMO. Unregulated fishing is conducted by vessels without nationality or registration, or flying the flag of states which do not belong to pertinent fisheries organizations. Therefore, these vessels are rendered unbound by the rules. In effect, fishing that is referred to as IUU is now generally understood to include an entire gamut of fishing activities that are in any way inconsistent with or violating the management measures in force (Agnew & Barnes, 2004; Le Gallic, 2008).

This consolidation of the IUU fishing as a worldwide problem affecting all types of fishing vessels — regardless of their size or gear and both domestic waters and the high seas — however, has garnered important criticisms based on its sweeping characterization. What is defined as IUU fishing in one country or context is not necessarily viewed that way in other countries or contexts (Leroy, Galletti & Chaboud, 2016). There is a great deal of variation in how fisheries are regulated in different countries, not to mention dealing with the many forms of fishing within each country. Scholars argue that the mainstream construction of ‘illegal’, ‘unreported’ and ‘unregulated’ fishing, and also the categorical use of ‘IUU’ in an all-inclusive sense, can, for instance, disregard the diversity, legitimacy and sustainability of small-scale fishing practices and their governing systems, generating unfair treatment of them by the agencies working to eradicate IUU fishing (Song et al., 2020). A more sensitive and context-specific understanding of ‘I’, ‘U’ and ‘U’ might be required to reset the direction of the IUU fishing discourse.

The difficulty of estimating the accurate extent and severity of IUU fishing presents a further challenge to the taken-for-granted depiction of the universality of IUU fishing. Despite increased attention and the use of more sophisticated surveillance and analysis tools (e.g. Dunn et al., 2018; Chuaysi & Kiattisin, 2020; Selig et al., 2022), the magnitude of IUU fishing activities at various scales is still difficult to establish (Song et al., 2019). By nature, it is largely a hidden activity that evades formal observations and official statistics. The association with unlawfulness also makes it a taboo (or even dangerous) subject to approach and expose. Questions about how to define and ascertain the extent of IUU fishing, however, do not diminish the need to appropriately confront the present and future threats IUU fishing poses. Doing so will require many different kinds of enquiry, including ones that are more context-driven and casebased, to arrive at a situated, delicate and responsive suite of mitigating actions.

Trade-based approach to tackling the IUU fishing problem

The ways in which the problem of IUU fishing has been tackled are varied, representing different mechanisms in place. There are at least two main approaches to deterring IUU fishing at the national and international levels. The first relies on so-called ‘traditional’ measures, based on the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) (Fujii, Okochi, & Kawamura, 2021; Ma, 2020). Here, the focus is on applying the jurisdictional power of a sovereign state to control the activities of fishing vessels that fly its flag, navigate its waters or enter its ports in accordance with the maritime zones defined in the UNCLOS (e.g. EEZs, territorial sea, regional fisheries management organizations [RFMOs]). Monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) measures form the core action with which to achieve compliance against fishing vessels (Le Gallic, 2008). By highlighting the obligations of flag and coastal states, this has been a consistent instrument used internationally and domestically from an early formulation (notably, from the 2001 International Plan of Action against IUU fishing [IPOA-IUUJ]) to more recent initiatives such as the US Interagency Working Group on IUU Fishing involving the US Coast Guard and the US Navy).

The limited capacity of states to exert control over vessels and jurisdictional waters soon became evident, however, leading to only partial success in preventing IUU fishing. Traditional measures are often associated with administrative and political challenges such as the cost of implementation, resource constraints and the problem of multi-country coordination (Le Gallic, 2008; Garcia et al., 2021). In the Gulf of Guinea region, for example, where IUU fishing is rampant (Okafor-Yarwood, 2019), coastal state capacity in the form of naval assets demonstrably had no bearing on countries’ ability to curtail IUU activities, including pirate attacks (Denton & Harris, 2021). The difficulties of reinforcing the duties of coastal and flag states through the MCS approach has elicited growing interest in exploring other types of measures aimed at combating IUU fishing, most notably those related to international trade (Leroy et al., 2016).

Trade-based measures are possible because the products of IUU fishing are often traded and transported across multiple jurisdictions (Young, 2016). Fish and fish products are, in fact, the most highly traded food commodity (Asche & Smith, 2010). Thus, controlling import of fishery products based on information about infringing vessels (e.g. IUU vessel lists) or the traded fish itself (e.g. through import documentation, certification or traceability requirements) becomes a crucial action for an import state. This approach has been broadly reflected in the IPOA-IUU,! which calls on the need for 'trade-related measures to reduce or eliminate trade in fish and fish products derived from IUU fishing’ (Young, 2016; Ma, 2020).

The two most commonly adopted and implemented trade-related measures against IUU fishing are: (1) the prohibition of market access for particular products based on the evidence of IUU fishing operations gathered from catch certification schemes (i.e. shipment-by-shipment embargo) and (2) species-wide (or country-wide) trade sanctions against countries suspected of IUU fishing (i.e. ‘non-cooperating states’), where products not resulting from IUU fishing operations are also banned (Ma, 2020; Hosch, 2016).

In addition to the EU and the US, whose unilaterally devised measures have generated much interest in the topic, regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) - including the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT) and the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) - and also global multilateral environmental treaties such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) have all implemented some form of catch certification schemes to combat IUU fishing over the years (Ma, 2020). The main innovation of catch certification schemes is known as the catch documentation scheme

(CDS), which identifies and certifies legally landed catch, and then tracks them through international trade to the end market. The catch certificate is issued to the first buyer of the unloaded catch from a fishing vessel, while a trade certificate is issued by the processing state when the product is re-exported. These are then linked sequentially via their document numbers to ensure traceability along the supply chain (Hosch, 2016).

CDS is relatively simple to police and enforce, but requires the cooperation of multiple authorities — flag states generating catch certificates, port states checking the legality of landings via catch certificates, processing states issuing and validating trade certificates, and endmarket states verifying the existence of all valid certificates at importation. With all involved parties performing their duties along the supply chain, CDS would present a stand-alone and real-time mechanism to seal off markets to illegally sourced products (Hosch, 2016). Its effectiveness has been demonstrated in the case of RFMOs eliminating underreporting and inducing the recovery of several transboundary tuna stocks through multilateral CDS (Hosch, 2016). Generally, CDS can be an effective tool where the most egregious form of IUU fishing is underreporting and quota overfishing. However, in fisheries where pirate fishing is more rampant, where there are ports and import markets that absorb the IUU catches or where small-scale fishing operations with limited capacity to comply with CDS requirements are greatly involved, CDS is likely insufficient on its own (Hosch, 2016).

Alternately, the second form of trade-related measure, trade sanctions, are more punitive and sweeping in nature as they are applied to countries perceived to be failing in their duty to combat IUU fishing by the party applying the measure. Again, RFMOs provide early examples. The International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) adopted trade restrictive measures on imports of bluefin tuna in 1994 and 1995 against Belize, Honduras and Panama. ICCAT’s member countries then applied the recommendations by implementing domestic regulations. For instance, in 1998 the EU introduced an import prohibition of Atlantic bluefin tuna originating from Belize, Honduras and Panama, followed, in 2001, by the import of bigeye tuna originating from Belize, Cambodia, Equatorial Guinea, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Honduras. Likewise, in 2001 Japan prohibited the import of Atlantic bluefin tuna from Belize and Equatorial Guinea (Le Gallic, 2008). The import bans were lifted upon the evidence of the country’s increasing cooperation with ICCAT with Panama resuming trade in 1999 and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in 2001 (Le Gallic, 2008; Hosch, 2016). The impact of these trade sanctions (especially when compared to the shipment-by-shipment restriction based on CDS) was said to be drastic, with all tuna exports from the targeted countries plummeting immediately (Hosch, 2016). Having many lucrative markets

(i.e. member states) near-simultaneously closed off to the targeted products makes such multilateral trade sanctions an effective action for depressing IUU activities (Hosch, 2016).

Taken together, the trade-related measures activate the economic control function of import states by restricting the import of fish products when the shipments are suspected of being unlawfully sourced or when the third country's vessels are suspected of being involved in IUU fishing. By design, they rely on reducing revenues from IUU fishing (by making it more difficult to monetize catches) and/or increasing both the operating and capital costs of IUU activities (e.g. higher fuel costs, restrictions on goods and services). These strategies are intended to make the operation of IUU fleets economically unviable (Le Gallic, 2008; Leroy et al., 2016).

While the MCS and trade-based approaches are both needed and complementary to each other, analysts have agreed that the trade-based approaches pose distinct economic advantages for states in terms of the cost of implementation. These approaches represent a major policy innovation believed to be capable of effecting large-scale change in IUU fishing behaviour across geographies. Against this backdrop, the unilateral policy actions of the EU and US are perhaps most remarkable and have attracted significant scholarly and civil-society attention in recent years. Because these are the two largest seafood-importing jurisdictions, any trade restrictions that either introduces would weigh heavily on the economics of seafood-producing countries. Overall, the trade-related approach is still fairly nascent and without extensive acceptance by the international community (Ma, 2020). Nevertheless, Hosch (2016, p. 54) states that the implementation of the EU's policy known as ‘EU-IUU Regulation’ in 2010 and the launch of a US initiative called ‘the Seafood Import Monitoring Program’ in 2018 ‘point to the beginning of a proliferation of unilateral documentation schemes'. There are also calls to expand these measures to other major importing countries, such as Japan and China, in order to amplify their impact across the globe (Leroy et al., 2016; Sumaila, 2019; Freitas, 2022).

The EU context and the IUU regulation

This book's main focus is the European Union's Council Regulation No. 1005/2008 of 29 September 2008 (hereafter, the EU-IUU regulation), because it offers a way to understand the potential of such a trade-related policy to scale out to and affect other countries. How non-EU countries themselves perceive, implement or comply with such a trade-restrictive measure aimed at tackling IUU fishing would prove to be an important marker of the effectiveness of this EU policy. This book, therefore, is a timely and unique appraisal of what the EU-IUU regulation may be capable of achieving in the fisheries governance of non-EU countries.

The EU is the world’s largest market and importer of fisheries products. In 2007, illegal fisheries imports into the EU have been estimated conservatively at €1.1 billion a year (Commission of the European Communities, 2007). Fittingly, the EU has been the first jurisdiction to implement unilateral trade-related measures to combat IUU fishing. This action was formalized through a law (EC 1005/2008) passed in 2008 and an implementing regulation (EC 1010/2009) adopted in 2009, together comprising a set of rules known as the EU-IUU regulation. This regulation was aimed at strengthening the market state responsibilities for the EU Member States by establishing a common system to control the inflow of IUU fishing. An official EU communication stated its rationale as follows: ‘the best way to put an end to this lucrative business is to remove the incentive for crime by making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to market IUU products at a profit (Commission of the European Communities, 2007, p. 2). The regulation is also described as creating a ‘level playing field’ in the global fisheries trade (European Commission, 2020, p. 3). Although this regulation builds on earlier multilateral traceability schemes of RFMOs, used to successfully deal with species such as toothfish and tuna (Agnew, 2000; Garcia et al., 2021), and adopts the internationally agreed upon definition of IUU fishing offered in the FAO's, 2001 International Plan of Action, it also contains features that are distinctive and innovative, albeit experimental.

The scope of the EU-IUU regulation is extensive in that it concerns all marine wild caught harvests (with some exceptions, such as molluscs) landed or imported into the EU, which originate from non-EU flag vessels. As noted above, it consists of a catch certification scheme applying to all traded fish products and a separate but related trade sanction component involving a ban of fisheries imports from countries identified as having unsatisfactory control of IUU fishing by their flag vessels (Hosch, 2016).

When it comes to catch certificates, a competent authority of the flag state is responsible for certifying that catches are being made in accordance with the applicable laws, regulations and international conservation and management measures. The competent authorities would also need to be formally approved by the EU Commission for countries to be allowed to export to the EU (Young, 2016; Ma, 2020). The catch certificate would contain information such as vessel name, fishing licence number, flag state, description and date of catch, and estimated weight of the landings. When a processing state re-exports an imported catch to the EU, a processing statement (or a trade certificate) must be issued at the time of exportation, linking the source products and foreign catch certificates with the end products (Hosch, 2016).

In terms of country-wide import bans, the EU-IUU regulation involves identifying ‘non-cooperating third countries’ and applying a blanket ban on seafood imports from those countries. The identification process is initiated by reviewing a range of information such as possession of IUU-listed vessels, compliance with RFMO conservation and management measures and adherence to ‘assistance requests’ made by the EU, in addition to the catch certificate data (Hosch, 2016). If, after notices and consultations, relevant flag states’ actions do not result in improved compliance and transparency, the EU may impose trade restrictions including both an import ban into the EU of all fishery products caught by the fishing vessels flying the flag of such states and the non-acceptance of catch certificates accompanying such products (Ma, 2020).

According to this system of rules, the EU began identifying the first batch of countries at the end of 2012. The EU Commission starts the process by initiating consultations with non-EU countries pursuant to Article 51 of the EU-IUU Regulation. Known as ‘mutual assistance requests,’ country visits may occur by a European delegation that includes the staff of the European Fisheries Control Agency (Hosch, 2016). Based on the findings, the EU Commission may request that the country implement certain changes to improve its control of IUU fishing, and upon successful follow-up actions by the third country, a formal identification (known as the ‘yellow card’) could be avoided altogether. No bilateral exchanges or reports are publicly available for this part, making it difficult to assess the precise interactions or their effectiveness (Hosch, 2016).

If the EU Commission’s mutual assistance requests, resulting from the bilateral dialogue, fail to produce reforms that the EU Commission deems satisfactory, then it will formally pre-identify the country by issuing a ‘yellow card’. To justify this decision, the Commission publishes a list of the third country’s shortcomings, which serves to demonstrate the country’s failure to address IUU fishing (Hosch, 2016). The yellow-carded country is then required to formulate an official plan for the EU Commission, showing how it intends to rectify the situation (Kadfak & Linke, 2021). A formal dialogue process ensues, involving visits by EU delegations to the identified country; this ultimately leads the Commission to either lift the identification (by issuing a ‘green card’) or apply a formal identification (by issuing a ‘red card’), depending on whether the EU is sufficiently assured that IUU fishing is being curtailed. The formal identification as a non-cooperating third country then institutes a trade ban on all fisheries products originating from vessels flagged to that country. Conversely, being de-listed to the ‘green card’ implies that the third country has suitably addressed and eliminated all identified IUU fishing issues (Hosch, 2016).

As of 20 January 2023, the EU Commission has issued yellow cards to 27 countries, 12 of which were later de-listed without receiving red cards

Table 1.1 Third countries affected by the yellow, red and green cards (status as of 20 January 2023)

Yellow Red Delistedlgreen Yellow

Belize Nov-12 Nov-13 Dec-14 Curacao Nov-13 Feb-17 Panama Nov-12 Oct-14 Dec-19 Ecuador Oct-19

Saint Kitts and Nevis Dec-14

Trinidad and Tobago Apr-16

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Dec-14 May-17

Guinea Nov-12 Nov-13 Oct-16 Togo Nov-12 Oct-14 Liberia May-17

Sierra Leone Apr-16

Ghana Nov-13 Oct-15 Jun-21 Cameroon Feb-21 JJan-23

Comoros Oct-15 May-17

Sri Lanka Nov-12 Oct-14 Jun-16 Thailand Apr-15 Jan-19 Cambodia Nov-12 Nov-13

Vietnam Oct-17

Philippines Jun-14 Apr-15 Taiwan Oct-15 Jun-19 South Korea Nov-13 Apr-15 Papua New Guinea Jun-14 Oct-15 Solomon Islands Dec-14 Feb-17 Vanuatu Nov-12 Oct-14 Kiribati Apr-16 Dec-20 Tuvalu Dec-14 Jul-18 Fiji Nov-12 Oct-14

IUU-watch, http://www.iuuwatch.eu/map-of-eu-carding-decisions/

(see Table 1.1). Three countries — Belize, Guinea and Sri Lanka — were de-listed only after receiving red cards. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Comoros, Cambodia and Cameroon have red cards in place, while six countries currently retain the yellow card status. Panama and Ghana are in an unenviable position of receiving yellow cards for the second time despite being de-listed several years prior, indicating the EU’s continual effort in scanning and reviewing the performance of third countries.

The EU stands out as the only jurisdiction unilaterally adopting the country-wide import ban against IUU fishing. Its catch certification scheme is equally sweeping in that the requirement applies to all species, products and volumes (as opposed to targeting certain at-risk species as is the case of the US Seafood Import Monitoring Program SIMP).? The EU policy is unique in this way but is not without shortcomings, such as the lack of transparency in the processes leading to identification (see Hosch, 2016), the asymmetrical power relations during negotiations, wherein the EU holds power over the third country (Kadfak & Linke, 2021) and the risk of unfairly targeting small-scale fisheries (see Song et al., 2020). The apparent concentration of EU identifications to Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the South West Pacific to date, 41% of which are small island developing states (SIDS), is noteworthy in this regard (see Table 1.1). In comparison, US involvement is more evenly distributed between world regions and also targets advanced fishing nations, including China, Russia, Chile and Canada (NOAA, 2021). Although determining the effectiveness of the still relatively recent EU-IUU regulation is not an easy task, as evidence of actual and measurable reductions in IUU fishing is rare, there are indications that EU identifications have motivated the targeted countries to improve fisheries governance in the form of updated legal frameworks and planning documents (Le Gallic, 2008; Hosch, 2016). Additionally, it has been acknowledged that the EU's identification procedure presents a normative signalling to countries, especially to flag states trading seafood into the EU, that continued failure to address IUU fishing will be subject to heavy scrutiny and will likely result in sanctions. Hence, the EU is spreading the counter-IUU fishing norms, and in doing so, the EU-IUU regulation is enacting two duties: directly advising the target countries on the guidelines for fisheries governance reform and signalling to the world its normative stand of the EU fisheries policy.

Several analysts have suggested that applying economic pressure through EU-inspired trade sanctions could gradually improve the global situation of IUU fishing (e.g. Hosch, 2016; EJF, 2021). There are even direct calls to expand or replicate the trade-based approach the EU has spearheaded to other major market states such as Japan and China to be more effective at sealing off IUU fishing worldwide (Sumaila, 2019, Freitas, 2022). Japan is in an advanced stage of effecting its own rule with the ‘Proper Domestic Distribution and Importation of Specified Aquatic Animals and Plants Act', scheduled to enter into force in December 2022. This new law will require records on catches and transfers to be gathered and submitted to the Japanese government in order to establish traceability, including a ‘certificate of legal catch’ from a foreign government for any imports (MAFF, 2022). With a possibility that worldwide market states normatively evolve in the direction of the EU standards (Leroy et al., 2016), a proliferation of unilateral trade-based measures to combat TUU fishing therefore appears real.

Unanswered questions about the global spread of the EU-IUU regulation

Given the general optimism and growing momentum of the trade-based approach, it becomes necessary to ask to what extent the trade-based measures will succeed in spreading to other countries. How do other countries go about adopting such an approach imbued with (potentially) different normative, administrative and technical bases? Would other seafood export/import nations consider joining the same ambition? Also, for those countries who may face trade sanctions themselves, how receptive or responsive are they to conforming to the new rules? Will their reform efforts be ‘deep-rooted’ enough, for example, so that compliance efforts are sustained and re-identification avoided (i.e. second issuance of yellow cards to Panama and Ghana)?

These questions matter because the EU-IUU regulation has so far contributed significantly to the trend of pressuring both flag and market states to make visible efforts towards eliminating IUU fishing. While ‘upping the ante’ through an extended network of similar (trade-related) measures is deemed necessary for a more effective fight against IUU fishing globally, at the same time, they likely mean greater consequences for more countries worldwide in terms of the burden of compliance and threat of trade sanctions. It was reported that SIDS are most vulnerable to seafood trade sanctions, since an average of 7% of all of their exports are fish. SIDS also generate an average of 1.8% of GDP from seafood trade, compared to an average of less than 0.4% for all other types of nations (UNCTAD, 2016). Meanwhile, a recent study showed that tuna fisheries in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean by Pacific Island countries made a substantial reduction in the total annual volume of IUU fishing product (i.e. harvested or transhipped) from 306,440t in 2010-2015 to 192,186t in 2017-2019 (MRAG, 2021). Therefore, it is questionable whether the intensity with which SIDS have been targeted by the EU-IUU regulation is indeed warranted.

Spreading of trade-related measures across the globe can impact countries in another way too. More market countries requesting catch certificates (especially if they are not multilateral or coordinated and hence are different from each other) will mean multiplied administrative and financial burdens on exporting countries. Hosch (2016, p. 54) has warned that ‘the burden of complying with complex and decentralised systems (i.e. systems not operating a centralised electronic platform) is particularly difficult for developing countries, their industry and their administrations and, in some cases, this may be beyond their means. In such cases, the technical dimension of proliferating unilateral instruments may reveal itself as a de facto barrier to trade’. As such, developing countries with poor reporting conditions will likely require additional resources to manage these requirements (Leroy et al., 2016).

Lastly, understanding the spread of the trade-related measures will go some way towards informing the discussion of the effectiveness of the EU-IUU regulation. The success of a policy is not determined solely by what it has achieved from the perspective of the initiator. Rather, in a relational way, success is determined by the degree to which the target community accepts the new intervention and in what form, i.e., how they make it their own (for example, see Miller, Bush & Mol, 2014). In other words, the success of a regulation would be something that becomes evident only in the aftermath of others having conformed to it (Song et al., 2019). In addition to the EU's assessment of how the EU-IUU regulation has performed (as demonstrated through the issuance of yellow, red and green cards), a deeper understanding of the non-EU countries who adopt, or are otherwise inspired by, the normative and technical proceedings of the EU-IUU regulation would also be a meaningful contribution to the discussion of markers of success.

The theoretical scaffolding of policy diffusion

This book examines how non-EU (typically termed ‘third’) countries themselves perceive, implement and/or comply with trade-restrictive measures, of which the EU-IUU regulation is a leading example. Doing so helps us to gauge the potential of this type of unilateral trade-related policy to scale out to and affect IUU fishing outcomes. To organise and gain theoretical support for the analysis, this book relies on what is broadly known as the idea of policy diffusion. Public policy innovations and their diffusion from one jurisdiction to another have emerged as the focus of increasing scholarly attention since the late 1960s (Eyestone, 1977; Gray, 1973; Mórth, 1998; Savage, 1985; Walker, 1969). More recently, policy diffusion has translated into a sizable body of literature on the diffusion of environmental policy instruments with respect to topics such as climate change, pollution and energy policy (e.g. Tews, Busch & Jórgens, 2003; Holzinger, Knill & Sommerer, 2008; Huber, 2008; Biesenbender & Tosun, 2014). For the purpose of this book, policy diffusion is an umbrella term that covers several similar concepts — most notably, policy transfer, policy mobility and policy convergence (Dolowitz & Marsh, 1996; Evans & Davies, 1999; Wolman, 1992; Klingler-Vidra & Schleifer, 2014). Together, policy diffusion encompasses a continuum of exchanges that includes both voluntary and coercive forms of spread that may rely on normative mechanisms such as policy emulation, harmonisation, lesson-drawing as well as structural and political forces involving institutions and incentives (Stone, 2012; Mukhtarov, 2014; Lawless et al., 2020). The push for the diffusion of a new policy can either come from domestic actors or from outside, such as other jurisdictions or international organisations (Shipan & Volden, 2008). Overall, policy diffusion is concerned with a trend of successive or sequential adoptions of a policy spreading outward from a point of origin, where innovation is considered to have arisen (Berry & Berry, 1999; Stone, 2012).