ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests some elements that might be useful in the development of a new paradigm for the management of ocean space. It focuses on the reasons for the creation of national fishery zones. The chapter examines traditional framework for governing world fishing, describes how and why it has broken down and looks at several elements that might be incorporated into a new paradigm. Most of the lay claim for the coastal state to a 200-mile fishing conservation zone or 200-mile economic zone. A political structure such as a nation state can create order within a territory and assign rights to claimants. For some states, enclosure is a counter-response to “foreigners” stealing “their” resources even though in no legal sense were the resources beyond their territorial sea or fishing contigious zone “theirs.” The entire system of treating fishing as a common-property resource has resulted in a situation in which there is no market price for ocean fish.
