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binding treaty and we believe that our move has influenced a num- 

 ber of other countries. We expect the chairman of the U.N. con- 

 ference, Satya Nandan, to introduce a negotiating text for a bind- 

 ing treaty before the end of the upcoming August session. This ne- 

 gotiating text should then be negotiated in future sessions. 



Mr. Chairman, you and your colleagues have spoken about the 

 decline in world fish resources. This decline has been dramatic in 

 some cases where there has been overfishing of straddling stocks 

 such as with pollock as referred to in the Donut Hole and with the 

 fishing in the Grand Banks area off Newfoundland, as well as with 

 some highly migratory species such as bluefin tuna to which you 

 alluded, Mr. Chairman. These problems are difficult because the 

 overfishing activities occur in the unregulated high seas fisheries, 

 those which are outside the exclusive economic zones of coastal na- 

 tions. This area has traditionally been open to all nations to fish 

 freely, but it has become clear that the traditional freedom of fish- 

 ing on the high seas must be balanced with the needs and rights 

 of coastal nations. That is the central focus of this U.N. conference. 



Let me speak briefly about what the result the United States 

 seeks in this U.N. conference would do. The result we seek from 

 this conference would support and advance the key elements of 

 U.S. fisheries law and practice. We seek to ensure that high seas 

 fishing on straddling stocks would be controlled so that it does not 

 undermine the management regimes of the adjacent coastal na- 

 tions. We seek to protect our Nation's large and important fisheries 

 for highly migratory species such as tuna and swordfish. The result 

 we seek would support fisheries science by increasing the inter- 

 change of detailed fisheries data among fishing countries. 



We seek a much stronger conservation ethic in terms of promot- 

 ing a precautionary approach designed by NOAA to model state-of- 

 the-art fisheries management. We also seek to encourage environ- 

 mentally safe harvest technologies and to promote a multispecies 

 ecosystem approach that protects not only the target stocks but 

 also associated species, including marine mammals and sea turtles. 



We seek the use of much better dispute resolution procedures 

 and enhanced compliance mechanisms. We aim to build on the 

 FAO flagging agreement which emphasizes the responsibilities of 

 flag states in monitoring and regulating fishing vessels flying their 

 flag. The result we seek would help in dealing with countries that 

 refuse to join regional fishing organizations. We believe the treaty 

 that will be ultimately developed in this conference will require 

 that in order to fish for straddling stocks or highly migratory spe- 

 cies a country must join the regional organization or comply with 

 its regulations. This should give us much greater leverage with 

 nonmember countries in situations such as ICCAT. Finally, our ef- 

 forts in this U.N. conference strongly support the relevant provi- 

 sions of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea — a major objec- 

 tive of the United States in these negotiations. 



Now, let us understand what the results we seek would not do. 

 Our efforts are not intended to infringe on the domestic fisheries 

 management rights of the U.S. through our regional fishery man- 

 agement councils for fisheries occurring entirely within our EEZ. 

 Achieving our objective in this conference would not require any 



