New York | The General Assembly on 10 December 2019 adopted by consensus the annual resolution “Sustainable fisheries, including through the 1995 Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks, and related instruments” (document A/RES/74/18).

Among others, the GA reaffirmed the importance of the long-term conservation, management and sustainable use of living marine resources and the duty to cooperate to this end. To this end, it urged States to increase their reliance on scientific advice in developing, adopting and implementing conservation and management measures for fisheries.

The role of the GFCM is highlighted in the recently adopted resolution as the GA noted in particular the Forum on Fisheries Science in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea organized by the GFCM in Rome from 10 to 14 December 2018 as well as the Joint GFCM/OceanCare Workshop on Anthropogenic Underwater Noise and impacts on fish, invertebrates and fish resources, held at the FAO HQ from 21 to 22 February 2019.

Finally, the GA urged those GFCM Contracting Parties that are still to do so to accept the Agreement for the establishment of the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean, as amended by the Commission at its thirty-eighth session in 2014. 

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