Legal and Normative Challenges Behind Sustainable Seafood

Abstract

AbstractIn the last decades, governments and international governmental organisations have been harshly criticised for their perceived failure to mitigate the environmental and social impacts of seafood production in a sustainable manner. In the 1990s, civil society stepped in, and public regulations were challenged by market-based initiatives. Since then, the sustainable seafood movement has seen a major acceleration with new initiatives having enormous impacts on the evolution of fisheries management worldwide. Today, norms, principles and standards are competing with and/or complementing each other in their attempt to integrate sustainability into the seafood sector. This chapter will present the global normative framework surrounding the concept of sustainability in captured seafood. It will analyse how all layers of norms interact with each other. Analysing these interactions will help understand the respective roles that these local, private and public initiatives are playing for each other in order to keep improving sustainability.