of trips per annum made by vessels fishing farther 

 from home could probably be restricted. Within 

 limits, this might control the number of days spent 

 on fishing grounds, but it would be impossible to 

 limit the number of hours fished.^* 



Finally, even if all these difficulties could be 

 surmounted, this alternative would be undesirable. 

 In effect, it forces all nations participating in the 

 fisheries to adopt a particular domestic policy. The 

 panel will recommend that the United States take 

 steps to rationalize the fishing effort of the United 

 States in catching its quota, if and when the 

 proposed quota system is adopted. But how a 

 participating nation wishes to proceed to catch its 

 quota is primarily its concern; all nations should 

 not be expected to proceed in the same fashion. 

 National aspirations and policies differ, particu- 

 larly between market-oriented and planned econo- 

 mies and different nations depend in different 

 degrees upon fishing as a source of income, 

 employment and foreign exchange. 



Unlike the direct limitation of fishing effort 

 imposed by an international fishery commission 

 upon each nation, the proposed national catch 

 quota system gives each nation the opportunity to 

 use its quota in the manner it thinks is best suited 

 to its internal conditions— to maximize its net 

 income from the fisheries, to prevent serious 

 unemployment in fishing communities with no 

 viable alternatives, to provide fish at the lowest 

 possible price to consumers, or to improve its 

 balance of payments situation; or to pursue two or 

 more of these aims in varying degree. 



The panel recognizes that unless each nation 

 seeks to rationalize its efforts to catch its quota, 

 the whole quota system may be jeopardized. 

 Unfortunately, then, it is not quite true that each 

 nation can work out its own way of catching its 

 quota entirely without prejudice to the other 

 participants in the fisheries. The panel would 

 prefer to await experience with the actual adminis- 

 tration of the recommended quota system before 

 reaching fixed conclusions about the inter- 

 dependency thereunder of decision-making by the 

 participant nations. 



On the whole, the panel concludes that the 

 reconmiended quota system represents the best 



"Ibid. 



feasible basis for the management of the North 

 Atlantic cod and haddock fisheries. 



5. Some Special Problems 



a. New Entrants The most serious obstacle to the 

 workability of the proposed quota system will be 

 the claims of prospective entrants to the fisheries. 

 In their present state, the North Atlantic fisheries 

 are not overly attractive from an investment 

 standpoint, yet the past decade has seen a rapid 

 expansion of the activities of several relatively new 

 participants in these fisheries. If an effective 

 national catch quota system is developed, with the 

 potential of sizable economic returns to those 

 participants which rationalize their operations, 

 these fisheries will become a tempting area of 

 investment for new entrants. Modem high seas 

 fishing technology has already demolished most of 

 the distance barriers and is well on the way toward 

 further reduction in the cost of fishing over broad 

 areas of the ocean. The unrestricted entry of new 

 nations would dissipate the economic benefits 

 expected from the proposed quota system. 



The problem of new entrants would be further 

 complicated if the nationals of an existing partici- 

 pant sought to evade the assigned quota by flying 

 the flag of a nation which had not previously 

 participated in the fishery or by simply investing 

 in the fisheries of such a nation. To make the 

 proposed system workable, it would be necessary 

 to debit the catch obtained by such foreign 

 operations or investment to the quota of the 

 existing participant. In practice, this may not 

 prove to be a difficult problem because existing 

 participants would have sufficient incentive under 

 the proposed system to discourage such efforts at 

 evasion. 



Apart from this special problem, however, it 

 will not be easy or equitable to deny access to 

 profitable North Atlantic fisheries to new entrants, 

 particularly if they are developing countries for 

 whom animal protein foods have great importance. 



There are many ways in which this problem 

 could be handled. A given percentage of the 

 overall catch limit— perhaps 10 percent— could be 

 reserved for new entrants; they would be required 

 to take their quotas with vessels carrying their 

 flags. To the extent that new entrants did not take 

 up all of this percentage, it would be allocated to 

 existing participants. This would permit full scale 



VIII-63 



