... And what it does not.

A Number of issues have not been adequately addressed in the Agreement. These include those relating to government subsidies and non-selective gear.

* Government subsidies. In the negotiations, most Governments felt that setting quotas for fishing would lead to reductions in the number of boats employed by the industry. Non-government organizations (NGOs) such as Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said that, while the Agreement was a significant tool for ensuring the sustainability of the world's fisheries, it paid only lip service to the need to reduce fleet capacity. They called for measures to actively encourage the decommissioning of boats, such as buy-back schemes and the elimination of State subsidies that underwrite fishing industry losses. Worldwide, government subsidies now total some $54 billion annually.

* Non-selective gear. The Agreement calls on States to use selective, environmentally safe gear "to the extent practicable". At the close of negotiations, NGOs expressed disappointment that neither coastal nor distant-water States supported the banning of non-selective gear. They stated that more selective fishing methods could reduce the global by-catch (or discard) by some 60 per cent by the year 2000 and help to conserve fish and other marine life.

The most notorious non-selective equipment includes nets large enough to envelop twelve 747 airlines and capable of catching up to 200,000 pounds of fish at each setting; and lines up to 80 miles long that carry some 3,000 hooks. In addition to target fish, "longlines" also capture and drown scores of large seabirds, such as albatrosses and petrels, which are attracted to the baited hooks and pulled under by weighted lines.

Progress in implementation

One year after signing of the Agreement, little has been done to implement its provisions. In a report to the United National General Assembly in December 1996, FAO and the WWF identified reasons for the slow progress and sounded a new alarm over the state of the world's fishing. According to FAO, levels of fish stocks have not improved since the early 1990s. Many commercially valuable stocks are still subject to heavy and sparsely regulated fishing, and some stocks continue to be overfished.

Among the problems:

* Few of the new regional mechanisms needed to implement the Agreement have been established.

* New fisheries management arrangements are needed in areas where existing regional organizations, such as the International Commission for the Southeast Atlantic and the Regional Fisheries Advisory Commission for the Southwest Atlantic, are inactive.

* Some regional organizations do not have a mandate to implement the Agreement.

* Some regional treaties have not yet entered into force, including the Eastern Pacific Ocean Tuna Fishing Agreement, signed in 1983, and the Eastern Pacific Tuna Fishing Organization, signed in 1989.

* Some agreements, such as two covering tuna fishing in the Indian Ocean that have entered into force, are not yet operational.

* Some organizations, like the South Pacific Permanent Commission, have limited management powers; others, such as the Fisheries Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic, are advisory bodies only.

Among the States that have not signed the Agreement are some of the world's largest fishing nations, including Chile, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Thailand and Viet Nam. The WWF also points out that several States that played key roles in the negotiations have not ratified the Agreement and that some countries, such as Argentina, are now arguing that the Agreement does not apply to their regional organizations. The WWF said that the United Nations should, as a priority, set up a mechanism to ensure implementation of the Agreement by regional organizations.