Anguilla 
Antigua and Barbuda 
Grenada 
Bahamas 
Barbados 
Belize 
Dominica 
Guyana 
Haiti 
Jamaica 
Montserrat 
St. Kitts and Nevis 
St. Lucia 
St. Vincent and the Grenadines 
Suriname 
Trinidad and Tobago 
Turks and Caicos 
The WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies: CARICOM’s Interests, Participation and Outcome
Nigel Durrant*
Agricultural Trade Specialist
ABSTRACT
After a long-winded process that commenced in 2001, the World Trade Organization (WTO), in June 2022, achieved an agreement on the disciplining of fisheries subsidies. The impetus for the negotiations had been the realization, at least in some quarters, that subsidies were contributing to the degradation of the world’s fisheries resources. CARICOM Member States, all of which place importance on fisheries as a component of their food security and economic development strategies, have an interest in sustainable exploitation of those resources, and from the outset, placed the onus on the nations with large-scale, distant-water industrial fishing operations to address the problem. The 2022 agreement represents a very partial outcome, given that it fails to address the core problem of overcapacity, which is a major driver of global overfishing. This paper addresses the main issues in the negotiations, the positioning of CARICOM Member States, the alliances that were forged, the main fault lines that arose in the talks, and the prospects for a more substantial outcome in future negotiations.
HOW TO CITE: Durrant, N., 2026. The WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies: CARICOM’s Interests, Participation and Outcome [Abstract]. Contribution 2.6, p82 IN CRFM, 2026. Volume I: Technical Papers. Presented at the CRFM 20th Anniversary Scientific Conference, 28-31 August 2023. CRFM Special Publication No. 37, CRFM Secretariat https://www.crfm.int/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=904
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