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Perspectives on International and Multicultural Affairs Volume 1, Issue 1

By Sarah Cottrell

I. Introduction

Fishing fleets have overexploited the world’s marine fisheries for decades. A 1995 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report indicated that approximately "70 percent of the world’s marine fish stocks were already depleted, slowly recovering from depletion, overexploited, or fully exploited."¹ Efforts to establish an effective international regime to regulate global marine fishing have been hampered by fishery locations: they exist in areas of national jurisdiction and in international waters. A fishery that spans both national and international waters is known as a "straddling fish stock." Migratory fish stocks also fail to reside in one jurisdiction or the other. Straddling and migratory fish stocks are global "common pool" resources, and regulating the fishing of these stocks in international waters requires the negotiation of multilateral agreements.

The United Nations Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 Relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks was completed in 1995 after two years of international negotiations. Initially, the European Union (EU) strongly opposed any binding international regulations that would limit its member states’ authority to fish in the high seas. However, the European Commission, on behalf of the EU, signed the agreement on the 26^th of June, 1996, and has promised to ratify it but has not done so yet. The European Commission’s about-face presents several interesting questions for research: Why did the European Commission alter its position and agree to ratify the Straddling and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks agreement? What international and domestic factors contributed to the decision? Which factors prevailed? Finally, why did these factors prevail?

The European Commission’s decision to agree to the straddling and highly migratory fish stocks agreement is significant for several reasons. First, it represents an example of European Commissioners acting as the foreign policy-makers for all EU member states on a particular issue. No delegates directly representing individual EU member states participated in the fish stocks negotiations. The European Community "has exclusive competence in international relations in the domain of fisheries. It is empowered to undertake international commitments towards third countries or international organizations in matters relating to fisheries."² Furthermore, the European Commission clearly has jurisdiction on fisheries issues involving non-EU countries. Under the EU Common Fisheries Policy, the European Commission has the authority to negotiate "fisheries agreements with third countries and [to] participate in various regional fisheries organisations (RFOs)."³

A second but related point is that by signing the agreement, the EU acted against the short-term interests of Spain--the member state with the strongest interest in exploiting these fish stocks. Indeed, Western European distant-water fleets traditionally have stalled efforts to regulate fisheries in international waters.⁴ Third, the EU’s handling of the fish stocks agreement is significant because multilateral agreements on global environmental concerns, particularly those negotiated under the UN’s auspices, are becoming increasingly common. The fish stocks agreement solidified the international regime for protecting straddling and migratory fisheries, and the degree of success that this regime achieves could have a spillover effect on other global environmental regimes. Finally, the fish stocks agreement represents a proactive step towards addressing the high seas overfishing problem. Indeed, it is "the first binding global agreement to address overfishing."⁵

The negotiation process for an international environmental agreement such as the UN Convention on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks is multifaceted and complex. Robert Putnam’s Two-Level Games model is particularly useful for understanding the negotiating process and the resulting international agreement, because it is a "‘general equilibrium’ theor[y] that account[s] simultaneously for the interaction of domestic and international factors."⁶ The two-level game model seeks to transcend the level of analysis problem by considering the negotiations at both the international level and the domestic level, as well as the dynamic interactions between the two levels. Putnam first explained the model in a 1988 International Organization article titled "Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games" The article contains an extremely clear description of the model. In the article, Putnam cogently describes all of the model’s aspects so that scholars can understand and apply the model in their own research.

In Double-Edged Diplomacy, Evans, Jacobson, and Putnam (1993) assembled a range of analyses that applied two-level games theory to security issues, economic disputes, and North-South tensions.⁷ The book’s analysis indicates that the two-level game model can be used to help explain a range of policy outcomes. For example, two-level games theory is a useful framework for analyzing international environmental agreements. However, the model does not explain fully how decision-making unfolds at each level.

At the international level, many researchers have employed international regime theory to explain agreements on global environmental issues. In particular, Porter, Brown, and Chasek (2000) provide a current and thorough analysis of global environmental regimes. They define a regime as "a system of norms and rules that are specified by a multilateral agreement among the relevant states to regulate national actions on a specific issue or set of interrelated issues."⁸ They also discuss trends in global environmental politics, the actors and institutions involved in creating and setting up the regimes, and ten case studies of international environmental regime development. One of the cases that they evaluate is the UN Convention on Straddling and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks as part of an international regime to protect the fish stocks in its title.⁹

Peterson (1993) outlines broader issues in international fisheries management that will inform this study, including policy choices and the outcomes of protective measures.¹⁰ Fisheries regimes are supervised both at the UN system level and at the regional level, and Birnie (1996) discusses the importance of these aspects.¹¹ Her observations are applicable here because the EU participates in regional as well as international bodies that aim to protect straddling and highly migratory fish stocks.

Vogler (1995) applies international regime theory to environmental issues that involve the "global commons." He notes that collective regulations are necessary to overcome collective action problems, like the "tragedy of the commons," that result from the depletion of a common pool resource such as fisheries or the stratospheric ozone layer.¹² Young (1999) asserts that environmental regimes have a strong impact on the problems that they seek to address, and he discusses a range of regime consequences as well as regime effectiveness in general.¹³ Hurrell (1994) similarly argues that states are "both too big and too small for dealing with these [environmental] challenges: too big for the task of devising viable strategies of sustainable development. . .and too small for the effective management of global problems."¹⁴

Meyer et al. (1997) discuss the structure of a world environmental regime, although they define regime broadly as a "partially integrated collection of world-level organizations, understandings, and assumptions that specify the relationship of human society to nature."¹⁵ In particular, they point to the importance of scientific discourse in demonstrating the severity of global environmental degradation. Furthermore, they highlight the importance of the UN system as "an open, world organizational frame" that facilitates regime formation and implementation.¹⁶

Peterson (1998) discusses structure with regard to specific environmental regimes, using a regime definition akin to that of Porter et al..¹⁷ Peterson’s analysis focuses primarily on the implementation "nuts and bolts" of environmental regimes. He argues that the most effective form for a regime includes a plenary body, an implementation committee, a results committee, and a secretariat. Furthermore, his argument acknowledges the "two-level game" aspects of activities within this structure.¹⁸ The fish stocks regime’s structure closely resembles the template that Peterson describes as being most advantageous.

At the domestic level of two-level games, this study’s focus is on the European Union. To that end, Peters (1992) and Spragia (1996) offer clear outlines of the roles of the EU institutions (European Commission, European Council of Ministers, European Parliament, and to a lesser degree, the European Court of Justice) in policy-making, as well as the role of member states’ input.¹⁹ Spragia examines environmental policy-making in particular, noting that "environmentally progressive states ‘[push] the process in Brussels along,’ which in turn ‘pulls’ other member states towards better environmental protection.²⁰ Spragia discusses EU-wide rather than international environmental policy-making, but the discussion can be applied to the EU’s negotiating positions in international regimes.

As a framework for analyzing the dynamic interaction between the international and domestic game levels, this study relies on four normative principles or "desiderata" outlined by Miriam Camps (1981): efficiency, equity, autonomy, and order.²¹ Camps notes that "tension and incompatibility among the four instantly appear if any one of them is given an overriding importance, and much of the argument in international forums today arises because countries differ on their relative importance."²² The desiderata are helpful in assessing the relative impacts of multiple independent variables. Within this framework, Sprinz and Vaahtoranta’s (1994) research regarding domestic vulnerability to environmental degradation and economic costs of addressing the problem shed light on the EU’s behavior within international environmental regimes.²³ Wallace’s (1999) article highlights the "paradox" of member states’ sovereignty within the EU, which contributes greatly to the assessment of the ‘autonomy’ value in this project.²⁴

Specifically, I have applied Camps’ desiderata tradeoffs between equity and efficiency and order and autonomy (see Table 1) to the European Union’s participation in the international regime that addresses the conservation and management of straddling and highly migratory fish stocks. Putnam’s two-level game provides an overall framework for the independent variables in this study: I have classified each variable as either international or domestic in nature. A further note is that the European Commission, including but not limited to the Directorate-General for Fisheries, served as the EU’s chief negotiator in the two-level game.

International-level pressures to support the fish stocks agreement outweighed the narrower domestic (EU-level) interests against the agreement in the European Commission’s final decision-making process. Specifically, I hypothesize that the factors relating to equity and fairness were most influential in the European Commission’s decision-making process. Furthermore, I expect my analysis to reveal that the Commission’s decision was influenced most by pressure from non-EU states and the Commission’s subsequent desire to avoid an international foreign policy crisis. I expect that the intervening variable, the "turbot war" between Canada and Spain, also played a decisive role in forcing the European Commission to support the UN Straddling and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks agreement.

Putnam’s Two-Level Games Model served as the broad framework for analyzing the European Commission’s decision regarding the Fish Stocks regime. The independent variables can be classified as primarily either "international-level" or "domestic-level" pressures on the European Commission. Furthermore, international regime theory informs my analysis of the international-level variables. Under the umbrella of the two-level game, I used Camps’ four desiderata to assess the relative impacts of both the domestic and international independent variables on the European Commission’s decision to commit to the Fish Stocks agreement.

A two-level game unfolds within the context of international negotiations, where a "chief negotiator" ‘plays’ on both a domestic and an international game board.²⁵ Level I consists of bargaining between negotiators at the international level that results in a tentative agreement; level II occurs at the domestic level as constituent groups discuss whether to ratify the agreement. The model assumes that the chief negotiator attempts to impact domestic and international politics either at the same time or by moving back and forth between the two levels.²⁶ As stated previously, the European Commission served as the EU’s chief negotiator in the Fish Stocks regime. An important note is that the Commission is usually discussed as a unitary actor, as it will be in this paper, but it consists of several different groups, including a Directorate-General for Fisheries.²⁷

The negotiating process may be iterative if the agreement forged at the international level is not acceptable to a negotiator’s domestic constituents, and vice-versa. The iterations lead negotiators to move back and forth between the two game boards. In the case of the Fish Stocks regime, multiple conferences of the parties were planned in advance in anticipation of negotiators’ need to move back and forth between the international and domestic levels. Therefore, a key concept in two-level games is the "win-set": the range of feasible outcomes that allows all of the actors involved to consider themselves winners.²⁸

Camps’ four desiderata provide a framework for understanding the tradeoffs between various goals and values that affected the European Commission’s decision-making process. Camps notes that "it becomes increasingly difficult to reach consensus on goals and objectives as one begins to define them more sharply, moving from a general statement to the definition of the policies, procedures, rules, and attitudes required to achieve or to promote them."²⁹ The desiderata aid in this process of understanding a particular policy consensus. In order to understand how the independent variables in this project could be analyzed using this model of tradeoffs, the four desiderata must be defined.

Variables that are pulled in the direction of efficiency lie primarily in the realm of economics.³⁰ The values and goals associated with this desideratum include the efficient use of global resources, the maximization of profits, the augmentation of competitiveness, improvements in technology, and the effect that a policy would have on markets. Equity (fairness) concerns the potential biases in the rules and procedures that govern a regime, regardless of whether the biases are intentional or unintentional.³¹ Equity also encompasses the fair distribution of goods and the notion of a growing common global society.

Autonomy (sovereignty) includes the notion of traditional state sovereignty and a state’s ability to act unilaterally.³² Autonomy also pertains to matters of nationalism. A state’s degree of autonomy is a touchy subject because it "is something that all states want up to some point, and if it is encroached upon beyond that point, the existence of the state itself is called into question."³³

Order, on the other hand, refers to "the rules, institutions, and conventional forms of behavior [that] should provide certainty and predictability to states and other international and transnational actors.³⁴ Camps states that order should "reduce and, if possible, eliminate certain kinds of disruptive actions."³⁵ Order includes issues of jurisdiction, conflict resolution, and agreement enforcement.

Efficiency, equity, autonomy, and order are not mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, tradeoffs must be made between them depending on an actor’s values and goals. In the present study, the independent variables will be considered in light of these four desiderata to determine which variables most strongly influenced the European Commission’s decision to comply with the Fish Stocks regime. First, however, the antecedent variables must be considered.

The primary antecedent variable is the overexploitation of straddling and highly migratory fish stocks. Without this variable a regime would be unnecessary. Other antecedent variables hinge on the fact that straddling stocks like cod and pollack and migratory stocks like tuna and swordfish are dwindling. The problem arose because improvements in fishing technology, combined with increases in the number of fishing vessels, exacerbated already-unsustainable fishing practices; weak international regulations and enforcement compounded the problem.

The placement of the straddling and migratory fish stocks issue on the global agenda is the second antecedent variable. The issue achieved a degree of prominence on the global stage at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED, also referred to as the "Rio Conference") in 1992. In meetings before the Rio Conference, Canada and the EU disagreed on language to be included in the nonbinding Agenda 21 document regarding the rights of coastal states to straddling and migratory fish stocks. At the request of UNCED’s Main Committee Chairman, the US brokered a compromise that resulted in an agreement to hold the UN Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks.³⁶ The United Nations was the appropriate body to sponsor the conference because the new regulations built on the UN Convention regarding the Law of the Sea of 1982.

The UN Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks opened in 1993, and represents a third antecedent variable. The parties to the conference met six times between 1993 and 1995. Two main coalitions dominated the conference. One consists of actors, led by the EU, that have primarily "distant-water" fishing fleets. Distant-water fleets catch fish in the high seas (international waters). The other coalition in this regime is comprised of actors whose primary interest is coastal fishing within the 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs) that are under national jurisdiction.³⁷ The coastal states were led by the "like-minded" caucus, consisting of Argentina, Canada, Chile, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, and Peru.³⁸ Canada, in particular, was outspoken in its call for the establishment of an international regime to conserve and manage straddling and highly migratory fish stocks, and was the leader of the "like-minded" caucus. Each coalition blamed the other for overfishing and mismanagement of the relevant fish stocks. Understandably, each side sought to maximize its own interests during the conference.

The straddling and migratory fish stocks agreement that emerged from the conference is a fourth antecedent variable. The agreement expressly notes that the problems that it addresses include "unregulated fishing, over-capitalisation, excessive fleet size, vessel reflagging to escape controls, insufficiently selective gear, unreliable databases and lack of sufficient cooperation between states."³⁹ The agreement also states that the parties are "determined to ensure the long-term conservation and sustainable use of" these fish stocks, and that they seek greater cooperation between states, including more effective enforcement measures.⁴⁰ Therefore, the agreement contains details about mechanisms for international cooperation, the strengthening and greater transparency of subregional and regional fisheries management organisations and arrangements, and greater sharing of scientific data, compliance and enforcement mechanisms, and the peaceful settlement of disputes.

In accordance with the two-level game structure, the independent variables in this study can be classified as primarily either international or domestic. Four of the independent variables are international in nature. The remaining three independent variables essentially impacted the domestic (EU) level.

At the international level, the first independent variable is the strong pressure from non-member states that the European Commission faced, especially from Canada, urging the EU to submit to the binding fish stocks agreement. A second but related variable is the possibility that the EU’s refusal to comply with the agreement could cause a foreign relations crisis that would have had both short- and long-term implications. Refusing to comply would have left the fish stocks problem unresolved and would have angered a number of actors; also, noncompliance could have put the EU at a disadvantage in future negotiations on other international issues when it might seek concessions from other actors.

From a practical standpoint, a third independent variable is the reality that a fish stocks agreement would have been ineffective without the EU’s participation. EU vessels accounted for such a large proportion of catches of these stocks that their compliance was essential to addressing the overfishing problem. The international community then could have blamed the EU if the straddling and migratory fisheries collapsed completely due to overfishing.

A final international-level independent variable is that the US ultimately supported the binding agreement. The US’s leadership in the negotiations and insistence on an agreement put a good deal of pressure on the EU. Even though the US played the role of facilitator and mediator in the negotiations, it was clear that the US advocated parties’ compliance with the agreement.

At the domestic level, three key independent variables were strong factors in the European Commission’s decision regarding whether to submit to the straddling and migratory fish stocks agreement. First, the EU member states’ interests were strong factors. In particular, Spain and Portugal had the most active and extensive distant-water fishing fleets. These countries had more at stake in the regime than the other EU countries, so their interests were major considerations for the European Commission. The EU’s distant-water fishing industry itself represents a second independent variable. The European Commission advocated the distant-water fishing fleet’s position in the international negotiations, yet there are many ‘coastal states’ in the EU. The EU’s coastal states, however, were less vocal on the straddling and migratory fish stocks issue. A third independent variable at the domestic (EU) level is the role of the EU institutions, and particularly the European Commission. The Commission’s decision-making processes and interests must be considered, particularly because they do not necessarily lead to policies that match with member states’ objectives.

A key intervening variable was the so-called "turbot war" between Spain and Canada. Spanish and Canadian distant-water fishing vessels clashed on the high seas when Canadian vessels repeatedly accused Spanish vessels of violating their quota for turbot catches in the region. The problem can be traced to the Fall of 1994, when member countries of the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) voted to reduce the total allowable catch of turbot stocks, and reapportioned some of the EU’s quota percentage to Canada.⁴¹ The Spanish turbot fishing fleet had a strong interest in maintaining large catches. The EU infuriated Canada by opting out of the quota, and Canadian ships responded by seizing or cutting Spanish turbot nets, and even seized a Spanish trawler that the Canadians accused of overfishing for turbot off the coast of Newfoundland.⁴² The "turbot war" well-illustrated the need for binding rules about fishing on the high seas, and infused the UN Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks with a sense of urgency.

In order to assess the relative impacts of the international and domestic independent variables on the European Commission’s decision to adopt the fish stocks agreement, the variables will be considered within Camps’ 4-part goals and values framework.

Several factors were at work in the category of efficiency. To recap, economic goals are associated with efficiency, including the maximization of profits and the augmentation of competitiveness and technology. Two of the domestic-level independent variables can be explained best using efficiency values. First, EU member states, like Spain and Portugal, with distant-water fishing fleets felt that their economic interests would have been served best by allowing them to catch large quantities of fish. The same argument can be made for the distant-water fishing industry’s interests, which had demonstrated their capacity for competitiveness in fishing these stocks. The European Commission’s initial obstructionist stance to the straddling and migratory fish stocks agreement reflected the efficiency arguments proffered by the distant-water member states and industry; however, their final decision to comply with the agreement goes against these groups’ stated interests.

Equity (fairness), which concerns the fair distribution of goods as well as the biases in the rules and procedures governing a regime, best explains the strong impacts of several of the international-level independent variables. Prior to the implementation of the straddling and migratory fish stocks agreement, the high seas fisheries were marked by their availability for use by any actor, because the fish were "common pool resources" that were "non-excludable" and "free for the taking."⁴³ The agreement sought to continue that spirit of equity through its rules and procedures while conserving the dwindling fish stocks. Therefore, the ‘pressure from non-EU states’ independent variable stemmed largely from a those states’ desire to achieve equity in the regime. Another independent variable that reflects the ‘equity’ value is the reality that the agreement would have been ineffective without the EU’s participation. Equity would have been undermined completely if the European Commission had declined to sign the agreement, because the EU would have benefited from overfishing to the detriment of other countries that attempted to halt their own overfishing. Also, the intervening variable, the Spain-Canada turbot war, reflected Canada’s insistence on a fair arrangement for high seas turbot fishing.

The debate raged during the straddling and migratory fish stocks conference over autonomy (sovereignty) issues. EU diplomats argued (initially) that the Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982 preserved states’ sovereign right to fish on the high seas, whereas Canada and the "like-minded caucus" argued that conservation should be the world’s first priority.⁴⁴ Indeed, the final agreement infringed on traditional sovereign rights that vessels previously possessed on the high seas. For example, the agreement provided for a coastal state to be able to board and inspect a fishing boat in international waters when it suspected the vessel of violating the agreement.⁴⁵ Spain and the other anti-fish stocks agreement EU Member states argued that their autonomy on the high seas should be preserved completely. However, the European Commission’s decision to submit to the fish stocks agreement did not reflect that goal. Once the Commission agreed to the treaty, the EU member states were obligated to comply even though historically "[t]he ability of a state to exercise effective control over its own destiny and to "be itself" was assumed to be in the natural order of things, to be close to a definition of statehood."⁴⁶

Autonomy arguments suffered the greatest defeat in the Commission’s decision to comply with the fish stocks agreement. Autonomy and sovereignty for EU Member states is realigning to a degree because it is "increasingly held in common: pooled among governments, negotiated by thousands of officials through hundreds of multilateral committees, compromised through acceptance of regulations and court judgments which operate on the principle of mutual interference in each others domestic affairs."⁴⁷ The Commission’s fish stocks decision well-illustrates the sacrifices that Member states have made in order to reap the benefits of being in the EU. If Spain had negotiated unilaterally, it probably would have been much more hesitant to submit to the agreement; however, the intervening "turbot war" was intolerable and some agreement was necessary to dissolve those tensions.

With regard to autonomy, it is important to note that states retained their autonomy to regulate fish stocks within their coastal EEZs. However, problems like overfishing in the high seas require "better ways to reestablish control through cooperation, rules, or other forms of collective action," in this case through actions at the international level.⁴⁸ The actors that submitted to the fish stocks agreement traded a certain degree of autonomy (or sovereignty) for increased order.

Order goals and values are embodied by rules and institutions that provide guidelines for actors’ behavior. The fish stocks agreement clearly represented a multilateral effort to bring order to the practice of fishing for straddling and migratory fish stocks in the high seas. By signing and agreeing to ratify the document, the European Commission made the EU a full participant in the international straddling and highly migratory fish stocks regime, signaling its willingness to comply with the document’s tenets. Non-EU countries also advocated more effective rules and institutions for the regime. The US’s support for the agreement and pressure on the EU to comply indicated its desire for order as well.

Furthermore, the intervening "turbot war" dramatically demonstrated the need for a strong fish stocks regime that included binding regulations both to preserve fish stocks and to prevent conflict between states internationally. Over time there have been two types of multilateral responses to overfishing that seek to preserve fish stocks: "international commissions charged with making joint decisions about managing a common pool resource, and regional commissions invigorated after 1977 [when 200-nautical-mile EEZs were established] to help coastal states cope with managing their EEZs."⁴⁹ There also have been multiple commissions to protect a single fish stock or multiple "valuable species" in an area of the ocean.⁵⁰ Clearly, those efforts have been inadequate for protecting straddling and migratory fish stocks, and measures for more regulations were necessary. Peterson succinctly sums up a process of creating strong fishing regulations that applies directly to this case: "[e]ffective fisheries management is the end point of a process that involves getting the matter on the political agenda, choosing measures from among those being urged as solutions to the problems of overfishing and overinvestment, and assuring action consistent with the decisions."⁵¹ Order issues, highlighted by the "turbot war," factored heavily in the European Commission’s institutional decision-making process.

The "turbot war" received a good deal of media coverage, especially during the Spring and Summer of 1995, when one of the UN fish stocks conferences of the parties was meeting. The "turbot war" directly publicized the conference, and Canada’s Fisheries Minister, Brian Tobin, publicly discussed incidents of Spanish overfishing to pressure the EU negotiators. Satya Nandan, the chairperson of the Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks, told the press that the "turbot war," "illustrated very cogently there is need to resolve this issue of fisheries in a global agreement."⁵²

While Canada’s Fisheries Minister was very outspoken, especially during the turbot war, the European Commission’s decision-making process on the fish stocks was not publicized. However, in fisheries negotiations the policy process is often relatively closed, "with government delegates weighing possible courses of action."⁵³ Also, even though the fishing industry was not particularly vocal in public fora (such as the media) on this issue, it no doubt monitored the negotiations but most likely spent the majority of its time lobbying its own government(s).⁵⁴ Therefore, the EU fishing industry was not a predominant factor in the European Commission’s decision-making process.

The Commission’s decision-making process was significant in explaining the dependent variable for other reasons as well. The Commission’s ultimate decision to accept the fish stocks agreement reflects the substantial degree of latitude that they enjoy in forging this type of international agreement. Their role in the EU facilitated this outcome, particularly in their ability to be swayed more by international factors than by domestic factors such as Spain’s interests: "[o]nce appointed, commissioners take an oath of loyalty to the European Community and pledge to accept no national instructions on policy."⁵⁵ The importance of the Commission’s relative autonomy in negotiating international fisheries agreements for the EU should not be underestimated. Indeed, the collapse of the November 2000 climate change negotiations (regarding the Kyoto Protocol) in The Hague demonstrated the difficulty that EU negotiators encounter when an agreement reached at the international level must be approved by EU Member states.

For the reasons discussed above, the analysis of the independent variables revealed that variables associated with order and equity weighed more heavily than those associated with autonomy and efficiency in the European Commission’s decision to sign and ratify the straddling and highly migratory fish stocks agreement. Furthermore, the variables that prevailed in the Commission’s two-level game decision-making process indicated that international considerations trumped domestic (EU-level) considerations. The Spain-Canada turbot war indeed played a key role in motivating the Commission to come to an agreement with the "like-minded caucus." These results support my original hypothesis. However, research indicated that the Commission’s decision-making process itself, which was considered to be a domestic-level independent variable, also was a critical factor in explaining the policy outcome (dependent variable).

An ironic point that emerged from this analysis is that the negotiators at the UN conference on straddling and highly migratory fish stocks were motivated chiefly by economics rather than environmental conservation (except when conservation was economically beneficial). The negotiators’ concern for the long-term conservation of these fish stocks resources appeared to be secondary to the disputes regarding quota sizes for their states and whether other states were "cheating" and getting more than their shares. The emphasis on catching "free-riders" (vessels that violated their quotas) reflected the equity value on the surface, but it stemmed from self-interest rather than an environmental or global equity argument. The negotiators sought high quotas for their fishing fleets so that the vessels could maximize their fishing capacities.

Another interesting note is that since the mid-1990s the EU has quickened its efforts to reduce the overcapacity of its Member states’ fishing fleets. The EU states that it "has facilitated the transition towards a better balance between vessels and fish, but more needs to be done."⁵⁶ In an article at the height of the Spain-Canada "turbot war," Canada’s outspoken Fisheries Minister summed up the fleet overcapacity dilemma: "[f]isheries management requires unpopular decisions to be made. Subsidies for boat-building and fishing operations have masked the real cost of fishing, and have led to expansion of fishing activity well beyond the capacity of the world’s fisheries resources."⁵⁷ The EU is also trying to modernize its fishing fleets further so that they are even more competitive in the global market.⁵⁸ Fleet overcapacity greatly contributed to the depletion of straddling and migratory fish stocks, so the EU’s efforts indicate that it is seriously working on tackling the overfishing problem at the source.

The EU is now a full participant in the straddling and migratory fish stocks regime. The European Commission’s decision to commit the EU to the regime’s binding international agreement set a significant precedent for EU foreign policy-making, especially with regard to international environmental agreements. The result showed that the EU, and more specifically the Commission, is susceptible to international pressure--including strong pressure from the U.S.--on an issue even if it leads to a decision that certain Member states perceive to be negative. In this case, order and equity independent variables at the international level guided the European Commission to comply with the fish stocks agreement, at the expense of autonomy and efficiency variables at the domestic level.

VI. Interpretation and Outlook for Future Research

The hybrid two-level games-value tradeoffs model used in this project would be useful for studying a range of other policy-negotiation outcomes. Putnam’s two-level games model is an especially useful framework for analyzing the push-pull that decision-makers experience from international and domestic pressures. Additionally, the four-part values tradeoff model augments the two-level games approach by providing a richer context for weighing the relative impacts of the independent variables, particularly in the absence of statistical data.

Future research could build on this project in several ways. Clearly, if a researcher were able to gain access to European Commission files and decision-makers, then his or her findings regarding the EU’s participation and decision-making process in the fish stocks regime would be less theoretical and more precise. Even if a researcher could not gain more access to the Commission, future research could assess the fish stocks regime’s success: whether it effectively conserves the fish stocks and settles disputes between fishing vessels and between states.

More generally, future projects could compare the European Commission’s role in other international regime negotiations with its role in the straddling and migratory fish stocks regime. Comparisons could be made with other environmental regimes as well as with regimes encompassing other international issues. Such analyses would be valuable to determine patterns in the European Commission’s negotiating style, the impact that it has on international regimes, and the degree to which it represents the interests of EU Member states. The findings in this project’s analysis of the European Commission’s decision about the fish stocks agreement indicated that order and equity factors outweighed autonomy and efficiency factors, and that international considerations trumped domestic-level considerations. However, more research is necessary to determine whether this pattern is a norm or an anomaly for European Commission decision-making in international regimes.

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End Notes

¹ Porter, Gareth, Janet Welsh Brown, and Pamela S. Chasek. (2000). Global Environmental Politics. Boulder: Westview Press, p. 135.

² European Union: The Common Fisheries Policy. (2000). "4.1 Fisheries Agreements with Third Countries." http://europa.eu.int/comm/fisheries/doc_et_publ/factsheets/facts/en/pcp4_1.htm. p. 1. Downloaded 11/4/00.

³ Ibid., p. 1.

⁴ Peterson, M.J. (1993). "International Fisheries Management." In Haas, Peter M., Robert O. Keohane, and Marc A. Levy, Eds., Institutions for the Earth. Cambridge: MIT Press, p. 277.

⁵ Porter et al., p. 136.

⁶ Putnam, Robert D. (1988). "Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games." International Organization, vol. 42, Summer 1988, p. 434.

⁷ Evans, Peter B., Harold K. Jacobson, and Robert D. Putnam, Eds. (1993). Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics, Berkeley: University of California Press.

⁸ Porter et al., p. 13.

⁹ Ibid., pp. 135-141.

¹⁰ Peterson (1993), pp. 249-305.

¹¹ Birnie, Patricia. (1996). "Regimes Dealing with the Oceans and All Kinds of Seas from the Perspective of the North." In Young, Oran R., George J. Demko, and Kilaparti Ramakrishna, Eds., Global Environmental Change and International Governance. Hanover: University Press of New England, pp. 47-92.

¹² Vogler, John. (1995). The Global Commons: A Regime Analysis. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, p. 10.

¹³ Young, Oran R. "Regime Effectiveness: Taking Stock." In Young, Oran R., Ed., The Effectiveness of International Environmental Regimes. Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 249-279.

¹⁴ Hurrell, Andrew. "A Crisis of Ecological Viability? Global Environmental Change and the Nation State." Political Studies, vol. 42, p. 146.

¹⁵ Meyer, John W., David John Frank, Ann Hironaka, Evan Schofer, and Nancy Brandon Tuma. (1997). "The Structuring of a World Environmental Regime, 1870-1990." International Organization, vol. 51, no. 4, p. 624.

¹⁶ Ibid., p. 645.

¹⁷ Peterson, M.J. (1998). "Organizing for Effective Environmental Cooperation." Global Governance, no. 4, pp. 415-438.

¹⁸ Ibid., p. 417.

¹⁹ Peters, B. Guy. (1992). "Bureaucratic Politics and the Institutions of the European Community." In Spragia, Alberta M., Ed., Euro-Politics. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, pp. 75-122.;Spragia, Alberta. (1996). "Environmental Policy: The ‘Push-Pull’ of Policy-Making." In Wallace, Helen and William Wallace, Eds., Policy-Making in the European Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 235-255.

²⁰ Spragia, p. 237.

²¹ Camps, Miriam. (1981). "Goals and Values." In Camps, Miriam and Catherine Gwin. Collective Management: The Reform of Global Economic Organizations. New York: Council on Foreign Relations/McGraw-Hill, pp. 29-43.

²² Ibid., p. 33.

²³ Sprinz, Detlef, and Tapani Vaahtoranta. (1994). "The Interest-Based Explanation of International Environmental Policy." International Organization, vol. 48, Winter 1994, pp. 77-105.

²⁴ Wallace, William. (1999). "The Sharing of Sovereignty: the European Paradox." Policy Studies, vol. 47, no. 3, pp. 503-21.

²⁵ Putnam, p. 438.

²⁶ Moravcsik, Andrew. (1993). "Introduction: Integrating International and Domestic Theories of International Bargaining." In Evans, Peter B., Harold K. Jacobson, and Robert D. Putnam, Eds. Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 3-42.

²⁷ Spragia (1996), p. 244.

²⁸ Putnam, p. 439.

²⁹ Camps, p. 32.

³⁰ Ibid., p. 33.

³¹ Ibid., p. 37.

³² Ibid., p. 40.

³³ Ibid.

³⁴ Ibid., p. 42.

³⁵ Ibid.

³⁶ Porter et al., p. 137.

³⁷ Peterson (1993), p. 250.

³⁸ Porter et al., p. 138.

³⁹ Community Legislation in Force. "Council Decision of 8 June 1998 on the ratification by the European Community of the Agreement for the implementing of the provisions of the United NationsConvention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 relating to the conservation and management of straddling stocks and highly migratory fish stocks." Europa (EU web site). http:/europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/lif/dat/1998/en_398D0414.html. Downloaded 10/1/2000. p. 3.

⁴⁰ Ibid.

⁴¹ Porter et al., p. 139.

⁴² "Ship Seizure Vital, Says U.N. Official." (1995). The Toronto Star. May 28, 1995, p. A16. Downloaded from Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe on 10/29/2000.

⁴³ Vogler, p. 4.

⁴⁴ Porter et al., p. 140-1.

⁴⁵ Agreement for the implementing of the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 relating to the conservation and management of straddling stocks and highly migratory fish stocks. Under Community Legislation in Force, p. 15.

⁴⁶ Camps, p. 39-40.

⁴⁷ Wallace, p. 506.

⁴⁸ Ibid., p. 41-2.

⁴⁹ Peterson (1993), p. 251.

⁵⁰ Ibid.

⁵¹ Ibid.

⁵² "Ship Seizure Vital," p. 1.

⁵³ Ibid., p. 265.

⁵⁴ Ibid.

⁵⁵ Peters, p. 85.

⁵⁶ European Union Commission: Fisheries Factsheets. (2000). "2.1: The Fishing Sector in the European Union." http://europa.eu.int/comm/fisheries/doc_et_publ/factsheets/ facts/en/pcp2_1.htm. Downloaded 11/4/00.

⁵⁷ Handelman, Stephen. "Tobin Warns U.N. on fish law for Canada, ‘no agreement is better than a bad agreement’." The Toronto Star, July 25, 1995, p. A14. Downloaded from Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, 10/29/00.

⁵⁸ Fishing Sector Factsheet, p. 1.

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