Illegal fishing
Introduction
Illegal (Article 2(2) of Regulation 1005/2008) 
, unreported (Article 2(3) of Regulation 1005/2008) and unregulated (Article 2(4) of Regulation 1005/2008) (IUU) fishing is another important branch of environmental crime. Once more, precise figures about its volume do not exist. The United Nation's Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) estimates that its global volume reaches up to 10 billion US dollars per year. The European Commission in its Communication on a new strategy for the Community to prevent, deter and eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing estimated in 2007 that about 500,000 tons of IUU products are landed per year in the European Union, with a value of about 1,1 billion euro (page 8).
IUU fishing impairs the sustainability of fisheries which try not to over-exploit existing stocks. It has negative effects on marine habitats and constitutes a "theft" (page 4) of common fishery resources and illegal and therefore unfair competition with the legal fishing industry. It takes away resources from coastal states and abuses the often weak and insufficient governance structures in particular of developing countries.
Public international law provides for extensive obligations of flag states to control and direct the fishing activities of vessels flying their flag; however, these provisions are insufficiently followed in practice which created the problem of IUU fishing. Lack of serious controls, weak and inefficient sanctions further contribute to the problem. The measures taken by the EU aim in particular at stopping IUU fishing imports into the EU. However, also activities by EU fishing vessels may be subsumed under IUU fishing, for example, when vessels flying the flag of an EU Member State land fish in a third country, in contravention of applicable legal provisions. And the Commission itself estimated that between 35 and 45 per cent of Baltic cod was landed without being declared (page 6).
The EU strategy to combat IUU fishing, adopted by the Commission in 2007 and agreed by the European Parliament and the Council, pursued three objectives (page 7):
- to identify, prevent and impose sanctions on the import of IUU products from third countries into the EU market;
- to enact more efficient measures to identify and impose sanctions on vessels and states engaged in or supplying IUU activities on the high seas or in the waters of developing countries;
- to improve the level of compliance with the rules of the EU Common Fisheries Policy within EU waters and/or by European operators.
Gaël de Rotalier