A/HRC/55/49 D. World Trade Organization 60. The Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies is the first World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement to explicitly address environmental issues, and is not yet in force. The Agreement establishes a set of disciplines on subsidies contributing to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and overfished stocks. The Agreement applies only to marine wild capture fishing and fishing-related activities at sea (art. 1), thereby excluding inland fishing and aquaculture and onshore activities such as packaging and processing. 61. The current Agreement is interim; member States must still adopt disciplines around illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and overfished stocks. Without settling the remaining disciplines, the Agreement will be terminated within four years of entry into force, unless otherwise decided by the WTO General Council (art. 12). 62. Generally, the crux of WTO subsidy negotiations is determining what counts as legitimate government support to ensure a fair and stable market (good subsidies) versus what counts as public funds being used to grant commercial actors an unfair benefit in international markets or that incentivize unwanted behaviour (bad subsidies). What is at stake for fisheries is a profound degree of inequality among developing and developed States and small-scale and large-scale fishers. In 2018, global subsidies amounted to $35.4 billion, 87 per cent of which were from countries with a high human development index value. Approximately 80 per cent of global subsidies were dedicated to the large-scale fishing sector and 19 per cent to small-scale fishing. Globally, per fisher, large-scale fisheries in developed countries were subsidized at a rate 36 times higher than those in developing countries, and small-scale fishers in developed countries were subsidized at a rate 21 times higher than those in developing countries. 67 63. At one point during negotiations, the Agreement included language that explicitly granted special and differential treatment for small-scale fishers. 68 Unfortunately, that language was dropped, leaving language on special and treatment for developing countries up to and within the exclusive economic zone (art. 3.8). Since small-scale fisheries represent 90 per cent of the fisheries workforce in developing countries, 69 the fate of many of the world’s small-scale fishers depends on developing and least-developed countries’ trade policies. 64. WTO members agree that the livelihoods of small-scale fishers must be protected.70 But without any distinction for small-scale fishers at WTO, developing and least-developed countries are free to subsidize large-scale fishers and prioritize their operations over small-scale fishers. Human rights, especially through the Voluntary Guidelines, can provide a way to ensure that the WTO Agreement, when finalized and implemented, protects the livelihoods of small-scale fishers and contributes to an ecologically viable ocean.71 1. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing 65. The WTO Agreement (art. 3 (1)) prohibits States from granting or maintaining any subsidy to a vessel or operator engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing or fishing-related activities in support of such fishing.72 67 68 69 70 71 72 GE.23-26071 Anna Schuhbauer and others, “The global fisheries subsidies divide between small- and large-scale fisheries”, Frontiers in Marine Science, vol. 7 (2020). See also U. Rashid Sumaila and others, “Updated estimates and analysis of global fisheries subsidies”, Marine Policy, vol. 109 (November 2019). See https://focusweb.org/policy-livelihood-challenges-for-indias-fishing-communities-implicationsof-the-wto-agreement/, video 1. See https://oneoceanhub.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Policybrief_HUMANRIGHTS_Smallscalefisheries_OOH.pdf. See https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news23_e/fish_28apr23_e.htm. Stephanie Switzer, Elisa Morgera and Elaine Webster, “Casting the net wider? The transformative potential of integrating human rights into the implementation of the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies”, Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law, vol. 31, No. 3 (November 2022). See also target 14.6 of the Sustainable Development Goals. 13