Experts Discuss WTO Fisheries Subsidies Pact, Implementation Challenges

There is a need for continued dialogue and coordination among international organisations and fisheries stakeholders to strengthen domestic preparedness and support effective implementation of the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, an official statement said on Wednesday. The Centre for Trade and Investment Law (CTIL), Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, organised a webinar which coincided with the commencement of WTO Fish Week and followed India’s ratification of the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies (AFS) on July 20, 2026.

The webinar highlighted the importance of reliable fisheries data, strengthened monitoring and reporting systems, institutional coordination, and adequate technical capacity for effective implementation of the AFS. The need for continued capacity building and technical assistance for developing and least-developed Members, including through available WTO mechanisms, was also discussed, according to Commerce Ministry.

The AFS, adopted at the WTO’s Twelfth Ministerial Conference in 2022, establishes disciplines on certain harmful fisheries subsidies, including subsidies linked to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, fishing of overfished stocks, subject to specified rebuilding conditions, and fishing on the unregulated high seas. According to an official statement, the agreement also provides for notification and transparency obligations and requires Members that have accepted the Agreement to put in place measures for its implementation and administration, including steps to give effect to its substantive disciplines and comply with notification requirements.

The discussions at the webinar covered implementation challenges, notification and transparency requirements, special and differential treatment (S&DT), domestic institutional preparedness, small-scale fisheries and ongoing negotiations on additional disciplines concerning overcapacity and overfishing. The panellists discussed the substantive disciplines and implementation of the AFS, including notification and transparency requirements, domestic data systems, inter-agency coordination and the relevance of India’s legal and policy framework. Notably, the deliberations also covered the negotiating history and ongoing negotiations on overcapacity and overfishing, the role of the IISD self-assessment toolkit in identifying implementation and capacity-building needs, and livelihood, food security and developmental concerns of small-scale and artisanal fisheries.

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