Creating legal teeth for toothfish: using the market to protect fish stocks in Antarctica

Policies to protect Antarctic and Patagonian Toothfish in the Southern Ocean are failing. Contests over sovereignty, the need for international decisions to be approved by consensus, inability to physically patrol the Southern Ocean, and the political vacuum created by the designation of the ‘high seas’ have each contributed to an overfishing crisis in the Southern Ocean and Antarctica. After documenting the contours of this fishing crisis and explaining how international law is unable to prevent it, this article proposes a fundamental shift in strategy away from supply-side controls that require a presence in Antarctica where the overfishing occurs. Lawmakers must utilise more rigorous demand-side measures if Toothfish stocks are to be preserved and allowed to recover.