Which flag do you fly?

(EJF, 2020)
 
So, perhaps you find yourself thinking after reading this blog, why can't these people who work in such a toxic fishing industry just leave? Why can't they just report to higher management?  Where is HR?  Listen up, folks, people are subjected to horrendous, grueling, dirty, and dangerous jobs for pennies on the dollar with little to no oversight or anyone to report abuse to. The fishing industry is no different. I have articulated how the ocean's vastness makes it hard for officials to regulate. Thus resulting in egregious human rights violations and a total lack of respect for fishing regulations. Thriving due to the lack of transparency and inadequate measure to inspect vessels. No stretch of the ocean is free from abuse. A really interesting loophole for committing human rights abuses and violations on fishing vessels are flags of no compliance. So imagine every fishing vessel has a home country, one they report back to. Every state has the right to register ships that grant these vessels their nationality, resulting in the responsibility for ensuring that its flagged vessel acts according to international law (stopillegalfishing, 2022). These ships are governed by the rules and regulations of the state whose flag they fly and cannot be flagged to more than one country. There are open registers with some countries; in theory, there should be a link regarding which vessel flies which state flag, but this has proven to not be reality. When a fisherman experiences any type of abuse, the protocol is to report and appeal to the state whose flag is on the ship. States sell their flags to fishing vessels without checking vessel history, safety, and do not take responsibility for what happens on the vessels. 

In some cases, the worker may not even know which country's flag his or her boat is sailing under (Armstrong, 2022). This is a huge problem, and captains, brokers, and companies who know how to make sure their employees (the workers who are doing all the laborious work)  do not know how to report abuse suffered on a fishing vessel. The International Transport Workers Federation has 35 registries as flags of non-compliance, with the most enormous numbers of fishing vessels registered to Cambodia, Panama, and Honduras, with an estimated 15% of the world's large-scale fishing vessels registered to flags of no compliance or listed as flag unknown (stopillegalfishing, 2022). The widespread use of flags of no compliance, also known as flags of convenience, exacerbates violations committed on fishing vessels, either human rights abuses or fishing regulations being ignored.  The lack of implementation of primary flag state responsibilities has happened due to the United Nations Convention on the Law Of the Sea and the lack of transparency in the global fishing sector which are key weaknesses that allow a safe haven for illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing offenders who can escape with no detection (EFJ, 2020). There is a solid argument to be made that flags of non-compliance in the fishing sector must end. 
(EJF, 2020)
(EJF, 2020)
(EJF, 2020)

Works Cited: 

EJF, 2020. Off The Hook. Environmental. https://ejfoundation.org/resources/downloads/EJF-report-FoC-flags-of-convenience-2020.pdf

Stop Illegal Fishing, 2022. Flags of non compliance. https://stopillegalfishing.com/issues/flags-of-convenience/

Armstrong, Chris. 2022. The Hidden Cost of Seafood. University of Southampton. https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/protecting-human-rights-fishing-industry



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