12 



driftnet issue are working hard with us to get the unauthorized 

 fishing that is going on there under control. 



You did mention the new agreement that has risen out of the 

 Food and Agricultural Organization. We sometimes call it the 

 "Flagging Agreement" or the "Reflagging Agreement." In my view, 

 this is one of the most important gloDal fisheries agreements that 

 has emerged in the last 20 or 30 years. It is an agreement that, 

 if we implement it well, if the international community implements 

 this agreement well, it will do a great deal to resolve the problem 

 of irresponsible fishing on the high seas. 



As a general proposition, what this agreement does is simply re- 

 quire states to regulate and control the activities of their fisning 

 vessels on the high seas. And it requires countries, if their vessels 

 are going to fish in a region, that they be party to the regional con- 

 servation agreement and the country concerned has a responsibility 

 to ensure that its fishermen act in accordance with the conserva- 

 tion rules. This will take care of the refiagging problem, it will take 

 care of the problem of new fishing vessels, which you mentioned, 

 being flagged directly into flag-of-convenience countries, where 

 those countries have no ability to control the activities of those 

 boats, yet we find them showing up all over the high seas. 



That agreement is now before the Senate. There have been hear- 

 ings held in the Foreign Relations Committee. The administration 

 has transmitted implementing legislation, and I certainly hope — I 

 know that time is short in this Congress, but it would be really a 

 fine thing if the United States could exercise leadership here by 

 being one of the first countries to accept this agreement and bring 

 it into force. 



In that regard, I would also like to note that this agreement was 

 just part of an exercise that the Food and Agricultural Organiza- 

 tion has taken on to develop a code of conduct on responsible fish- 

 ing practices. It is not expected, Senator, that this will result in 

 any other binding agreements, but we do think that through this 

 process there is going to be a series of nonbinding resolutions and 

 declarations on a variety of issues of real importance to the inter- 

 national community. It is an area where the United States can 

 take a significant leadership role while at the same time involving 

 a lot of the developing countries that are having a hard time ad- 

 dressing these issues in their own 200-mile exclusive economic 

 zones. It is an area that we want to spend a great deal of energy 

 on. 



Mr. Martin is going to be addressing the U.N. Conference on 

 Straddling Stocks and Highly Migratory Species. I would just say 

 that the administration has now made clear its willingness to pur- 

 sue a binding agreement out of that process. But that does not de- 

 tract from the difficulty, I think, that we will face in reaching a 

 meaningful agreement on a global basis which is going to be sup- 

 ported by the variety of U.S. constituent interests that are con- 

 cerned here. 



But I am confident to say that we will seek a result that will 

 support and will supplement the key agreements that we have 

 reached in the Donut Hole and in the South Pacific, and that we 

 will not do anything in that negotiating context that would preju- 

 dice those agreements in any way. We will certainly be working 



