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economic yield. By doing so it has been clearly demonstrated that in major 
mature fisheries, millions, and tens of millions, of dollars could be saved per year. 
As an example it is generally agreed by the scientists of all countries involved 
in the very large and valuable Barents Sea cod fishery that if the fishing effort 
were cut in half the physical yield would increase by perhaps 10%, with a net 
earning increase to remaining fishermen per year of some tens of millions of 
dollars. 
The trouble is that the social, economic, political and diplomatic consequences 
that flow from taking such a decision are so complex and vexing that individual 
nations seldom, if ever, take such a decision in managing common property 
fisheries within their exclusive jurisdiction and no general formula has been 
found which permits such a decision to be agreed upon among nations that 
jointly operate on a particular fishery resource. The grounds for such a general 
formula is being sought by groups of scientists and economists working together 
especially in the framework of the Northeast Atlantic Fishery Commission, the 
International Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Commission, with the cooperation 
of FAO Department of Fisheries. 
At the heart of this problem is the fact that soverign nations manage the use 
of their common property fishery resources, when they pay any attention to the 
problem at all, in such a manner as to maximize the net social return to it from 
such use, and not the net economic return. The objective may be to maximize 
physical yield from its fisheries, or employment of its citizens, or foreign exchange 
earnings, or foreign exchange savings, or the accumulation of capital, or the 
contribution to defense, or the accomplishment of technical assistance, or to 
improve the nutritional quality of the national diet, or to support the national 
posture generally, or some mix of these objectives. Examples can be provided 
for all of these situations and mixes including most of them. 
Nations not only do not attempt to maximize the net economic yield from their 
use of the common property resource of the ocean but they normally move to 
the contrary in a most flagrant manner by giving subsidies to their fisheries to 
increase effort on common property resources, even those known to be beyond 
the level of fishing effort corresponding to maximum sustainable yield. Numerous 
examples of this can be cited. Since it is the sovereign nation states who are 
the joint owners of the living resources of the high seas it is not possible to 
move on such policy decision until they are in agreement to it. 
The diplomatic consequences of such a decision are almost as difficult, and 
arise from the same source. If one is going to maximize the net economic yield 
from the use of a fishery resource one must limit entry to the fishery. To do 
this one must have jurisdiction over all fishermen wishing to participate in the 
fishery, ability to enforce exclusion, and a court of law in which to prosecute 
violators. The international mechanics does not exist to do this. The only available 
mechanism upon which to build such a structure is the United Nations or one 
of its specialized agencies. The prospective violators (sovereign nation states) 
make up their membership, and will not delegate their sovereign authority to 
such a body at this stage of history, or finance its operations. 
What the nations have done as a group is adopt the objective of maximizing 
the sustainable physical yield from common property fishery resources, with a 
polite, but ineffective, bow in the general direction of maximizing net economic 
yield. 
The first two articles of the “Convention on Fishing and Conservation of the 
Living Resources of the High Seas” read as follows: 
“ARTICLE I 
“7. All States have the right for their nationals to engage in fishing on the 
high seas, subject (a) to their treaty obligations, (b) to the interests and rights 
of coastal States as provided for in this Convention, and (c) to the provisions 
contained in the following articles concerning conservation of the living resources 
of the high seas. 
“2. All States have the duty to adopt, or to cooperate with other States in 
adopting, such measures for their respective nationals as may be necessary for 
the conservation of the living resources of the high seas. 
“ARTICLE IT 
“As employed in this Convention, the expression “conservation of the living 
resources of the high seas’? means the aggregate of the measures rendering pos- 
