This section will consider these States alone, on the basis they are the States participating in the Fridtjof Nansen Programme for Northwest Africa.
This section will consider matters in light of the following arrangements:
- African Atlantic Convention
- SRFC Convention
- CECAF
- Cooperation Agreement in Fishing Sector between the Kingdom of Morocco and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.
Morocco and Senegal are contracting parties to the African Atlantic Convention, while The Gambia and Mauritania are only signatories. The Gambia, Mauritania and Senegal are contracting parties to the SRFC Convention, while Morocco is not. All four States in question are members of CECAF. Morocco and Mauritania have signed an agreement for the cooperation between the two states in marine fisheries related matters. These four arrangements, and the scope for cooperation within each of them, has already been discussed in section 3 above.
The choice of arrangement for cooperation among the four States is far from immediately clear. In the case of each of the existing four arrangements, only a portion of the membership of the arrangements is in issue. Furthermore, in the case of the African Atlantic Convention only two of the four States in question are parties, and in the case of the SRFC Convention only three of the four States are parties. In these circumstances, and in view of the current weak position of CECAF, it is suggested that two broad options are available.
The first is for the four States in question to form an arrangement among themselves. The justification for this would be that (a) it would allow focus on the unit of principal interest to the Fridtjof Nansen Programme for Northwest Africa and (b) it would allow negotiation between the four States from first principles (e.g. those suggested in sections 3.3 to 3.8 above). It need not be a treaty; on the contrary a MOU or joint statement among the States might be more appropriate.
Its chief disadvantage is that it would ignore the significant cooperation arrangements already in place. Further, it would potentially need to be integrated with any existing bilateral arrangements existing between any of the four States in question (e.g. the arrangements between The Gambia/Senegal, Mauritania/Senegal, Morocco/Senegal, and Morocco/Mauritania [see Table 7]).
The second broad option would instead be to use any of the existing arrangements. However, use of such arrangements would require (as appropriate):
The possible themes for cooperation are research and stock assessment, conservation and management, and MCS. Elements of cooperation under each of these themes have already been suggested in sections 3.8.1, 3.8.2 and 3.8.3, respectively. However, the following broad points can be made:
Political circumstances are likely to drive both the nature of any cooperation arrangement between the four States in question and the theme and degree of any cooperation. The broad options on arrangements and themes for cooperation have been described in sections 4.3 and 4.4 above. Beyond these broad options, the availability of more detailed options will depend to a large extent on whether an existing arrangement is being used or whether a new arrangement is created. In either case, the more detailed options in sections 3.5 and 3.8 above are relevant. In the case of a new arrangement being created, the more detailed options in sections 3.3, 3.4, 3.6 and 3.7 are relevant. Though geared to arrangements for cooperation over small pelagics in Northwest Africa generally, the discussion in those sections (3.3 - 3.8) is equally applicable to The Gambia, Mauritania, Morocco and Senegal.
