28. Catch certificates have been introduced to identify the origin of catches and to track the fish product as it moves through the market chain. If the product enters into international trade, catch certificates are referred to as trade documents. Catch certificates and trade documents were first introduced to monitor trade in tunas and swordfish.
29. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) introduced catch certification to monitor catches of bluefin tuna in 1995, and was successful at identifying unreported catches. The trade certificates were then used to impose trade embargoes on the import of un-reported bluefin catch into Japan and Europe, and forced several "flag of convenience" countries to join ICCAT, and to implement their Rules and Regulation, including reporting. Numerous fishing vessels that did not wish to be constrained by the ICCAT regulations changed their flags.
30. The success of the ICCAT bluefin tuna measures encouraged the extension of the measures to other species within ICCAT, i.e. swordfish and bigeye tuna. Other RFMOs also adopted similar schemes, e.g. the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT) and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC). CCAMLR also introduced a similar scheme for Patagonian toothfish.
31. The Consultation reaffirmed the recommendations of the 2002 Expert Consultation of Regional Fisheries Management Bodies on Harmonization of Catch Certification Schemes held in La Jolla, USA. These recommendations are reiterated here for completeness:
a) FAO should investigate the possibility of uniquely identifying fishing vessels.
b) The terms and codes used in catch certification and trade documentation for species, fishing gear etc. should be those adopted by the CWP, and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) codes should be used for the country codes.
c) FAO should design standard forms based on forms already in use, in consultation with the users of the forms and FAO should encourage their use by current and future schemes.
d) Efforts should continue to achieve harmonization of tariff commodity codes to adequately describe the species subject to trade documentation. Where they exist such codes should be incorporated into the trade documents where a code is available.
e) Consideration should be given to flag States reporting all information contained in catch certificates or trade documents to a central database used by the responsible RFMO.
f) Priority for development of new schemes should be given to fisheries that are or may be subject to significant levels of IUU fishing.
g) Where redundancy in catch certificate and trade document among schemes occurs, RFMOs should consult with an aim to eliminating duplicative documents and to eliminating opportunities for fraud.
h) Further consideration should be given to the feasibility of developing electronic systems for producing information for catch certificates and trade documents.
i) Until an electronic format is developed and implemented effort should be made to limit the size of each document to one page size A4.
j) Consideration should be given to assisting developing countries in meeting the requirements of any catch certification or trade documentation scheme.
32. The Consultation briefly discussed the acquisition and transmission of reliable information which may be needed to apply the USA’s Lacey Act and similar effective legislation in force in other jurisdictions. This is a conservation law that allows USA authorities to seize fish and to prosecute those involved, in situations where the fish were harvested, possessed or transported illegally in one jurisdiction (State) and then imported into the USA.
