Introduction
The staggering scale of modern slavery — slavery, servitude, and debt bondage —inhumane treatment, and human trafficking has been well documented. In 2022, the International Labor Organization estimated that roughly 28 million people victims of “forced labour” — labour coerced under threat — with 128,000 people trapped in force labor on fishing vessels around the world. Moreover, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reports that human trafficking and the use of forced labor are “closely linked” to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and the depletion of fish stocks. As fishers continue to deplete fish stocks — more than 34% of stocks are now fished at unsustainable levels — vessels and their crew stay at sea for longer periods in order to remain profitable. Some tuna longliners, for example, stay at sea for months or even years when aided by at-sea transhipment. As fishing voyages lengthen and fuel costs unavoidably rise, vessel owners and operators reduce or eliminate other costs by denying crew members their fundamental rights concerning the terms and conditions of their labour, including those concerning wages, safety standards, and other living and working conditions. In fact, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reports that many fishers are traded from vessel to vessel and, because they cannot escape, are “de facto prisoners.”
To address these issues within the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), which manages the planet’s most valuable fishery, Indonesia — perhaps responding to numerous situations involving death, injury, and non-payment of wages to Indonesian fishers — proposed a binding Conservation and Management Measure (CMM) on Labour Standards for Crew on Fishing Vessels in 2020. Although most WCPFC members supported Indonesia’s proposal, China opposed it, arguing that the ILO and International Maritime Organization (IMO), not the WCPFC, were the appropriate forums for adopting binding labor standards for crew. Given the consensus-based voting culture of the WCPFC, China was able to block adoption of Indonesia’s proposal.
After four years of negotiations, the WCPFC became the first regional fisheries management organizations (RFMO) to adopt a binding measure — CMM 2024–04 — to prevent the “the typical range of abuses” that fishers face: threats against family, confinement, confiscation of travel documents, denial of food and sleep, threats of legal action, and sexual violence. The WCPFC rightfully calls this measure “historic.” Yet, it is far from sufficient.
Human Rights are a Fisheries Issue
As an initial matter, labor standards are very much a fisheries issue. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in Article 94 directs states to “take such measures for ships flying its flag as are necessary to ensure safety at sea with regard, inter alia, to . . . labour conditions.” Even if UNCLOS is not, strictly speaking, a fisheries treaty, the FAO has explicitly made labor standards a fisheries issue. The FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (Code of Conduct) establishes “principles and international standards of behavior for responsible fisheries practices.” To that end, it emphasizes that:
“States should ensure that fisheries activities and equipment allow for safe, healthy and fair working and living conditions and meet internationally agreed standards adopted by relevant international organizations.”
It further directs States and RFMOs to adopt CMMs that take into account “the interests of fishers” asks States “to ensure that health and safety standards are adopted for everyone employed in fishing operations.” With the Code of Conduct, the FAO recognized that labor standards for crew are an important means to ensure the effective conservation and management fisheries resources.
The WCPFC’s Binding Conservation and Management Measure
Most WCPFC members needed little or no persuading that labor standards for crew were a fisheries issue and that the WCPFC had competence to adopt them. In fact, the WCPFC had already adopted the non-binding Resolution 2018–01 on labor standards for crew and the binding CMM 2018-05 requiring vessels to provide onboard observers with food, accommodation, and medical and sanitary facilities of a reasonable standard equivalent to those provided to an officer. Significantly, the Convention on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPF Convention), which establishes the WCPFC, does not grant the WCPFC more expansive authority to adopt non-binding resolutions than binding CMMs. If the WCPFC can adopt non-binding standards for crew, it can adopt binding standards. Moreover, if it can adopt binding standards for onboard observers, it can do so for crew. In fact, the WCPF Convention adopts the language of the FAO Code of Conduct by granting the WCPFC the authority to “adopt minimum standards for the responsible conduct of fishing operations.”
At the WCPFC’s meeting in 2020, at which Indonesia proposed a binding CMM on labor standards for crew, the discussion quickly turned to the establishment of an intersessional working group to develop standards. Due to the pandemic which prevented in-person meetings, and the contentious nature of the issue itself, the working group made slow, but steady progress. One key concession made relatively early in the discussions was to make a list of provisions that should be included in a fisher’s contract a list of non-binding contract elements. Some of these elements are significant, such as the amount of wages, the starting date and duration of contract, the amount of paid leave, and the health and social benefits to be provided. This is in sharp contrast to the ILO’s Work in Fishing Convention, which makes these contract elements mandatory.
Advocates of a strong CMM made two other important concessions. First, the CMM does not apply to vessels fishing within a single EEZ or in archipelagic waters. Because a large number of vessels, such as the purse seine fleets of Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as longline vessels flagged to Indonesia and Chinese-Taipei, fish only in a single EEZ (see Vidal et al. (2024)), many vessels are excluded from the requirements of the new CMM. Second, the CMM does not enter into force until January 1, 2028 so that members can revise relevant legislation, which in some states treats migrant fishers differently from residents.
Despite these limitations, the adopted CMM does require WCPFC members and cooperating non-members (collectively referred to as CCMs) to ensure that owners and operators of fishing vessels provide fishing crew with an actual written contract “in a form and language that facilitates the crew member’s understanding of the terms.” CCMs must also ensure that vessel owners and operators provide:
“decent working and living conditions on board fishing vessels, including access to clean or potable freshwater and food, occupational safety and health protection, medical care, rest periods and sleeping quarters.”
Fishing crew must also have:
“unfettered access to their identity documents, ability to terminate the contract of employment and seek repatriation, and unmonitored access to communication devices to seek assistance.”
With access to communications, of course, fishers can report any abuse and violations of the CMM.
The CMM further establishes procedures, including requirements to cease fishing and to notify the flag CCM, in the event of a crew member’s death or serious illness or if a crew member falls overboard. It further prohibits forced and compulsory labor and requires the flag CCM to ensure that the owner or operator of the vessel takes measures to protect the crew member and that the flag CCM investigate the allegations and appropriate action in response to the investigation.
Next Steps
The WCPFC’s binding regulation is an important step towards preventing IUU fishing and protecting the lives of the men, women, and children who risk their lives and wellbeing to provide the world with tuna and other fisheries resources. But it is just the first step.
First, the WCPFC must decide to evaluate compliance with the regulation through its Technical and Compliance Committee (TCC). The purpose of the WCPFC’s Compliance Monitoring Scheme is to ensure that CCMs implement and comply with obligations arising under the WCPF Convention and CMMs. Given the large number of obligations, however, each year the WCPFC produces a list of obligations to be assessed. Once the new CMM on labor standards enters into force, it must be among the CMMs to be assessed to ensure that the binding standards are not empty promises to treat fishers with dignity.
Second, other RFMOs must follow the lead of the WCPFC. In March 2025, the European Union proposed to the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) that it initiate a process to develop labor standards for crew that took into account the ILO Work in Fishing Convention and binding resolutions of other RFMOs. The IOTC, however, did not adopt the EU’s proposal at its April 2025 meeting. Given the small overlap in membership between the WCPFC and the IOTC, perhaps the IOTC simply needs time to get comfortable with the idea, as the WCPFC did. In the meantime, it may be relatively easier to reach consensus within the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), where roughly half of the membership overlaps with that of the WCPFC. Advocating for binding labor standards for crew in the IATTC also makes sense because many vessels fish in the waters of both the WCPFC and IAATC, the two convention areas also overlap, and the two commissions manage many of the same stocks. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas might also produce more positive results because many of its members are also members of the ILO’s Work in Fishing Convention or WCPFC members (Canada, China, Japan, Republic of Korea, United States).
Absent action by RFMOs, flag States should pursue domestic policies to improve conditions for fishers. Notably, the Republic of Korea has adopted a plan imposing new labor standards that apply to migrant fishers on Korean-flagged distant water fishing vessels. Failure by vessels to comply with the plan’s standards by, for example, withholding wages will result in a reduction in that vessel’s catch quota.
The preferred alternative, however, is widespread ratification of the ILO’s Work in Fishing Convention. The ILO does not have a robust compliance regime as these RFMOs do, and some of its key obligations are subject to interpretation by parties (see Wold, 2022). Yet, its provisions are far more detailed than those found in the WCPFC’s new CMM 2024–04. For example, as noted above, the discretionary contract elements of the CMM 2024–04 are mandatory in the Work in Fishing Convention. Under the Work in Fishing Convention, the contract shall specify, for example, the amount of wages, minimum periods of rest, and health and social security benefits. The convention further specifies what constitutes adequate sleeping accommodations and establishes a minimum age (16) for working on a vessel, among other things not included in WCPFC CMM 2024–04.
Conclusion
To combat IUU fishing, enhance the long-term conservation of fish stocks, and protect human rights of fishing crews, RFMOs must adopt binding labor standards for crew that can be enforced in a transparent way or States must ratify the ILO’s Work in Fishing Convention. The sooner that RFMOs recognize these critical linkages by adopting binding labor standards, the sooner they can further prevent and deter IUU fishing, better manage the world’s most valuable tuna fishery, and sufficiently protect the lives of fishers.