ABSTRACT
Fisheries subsidies have been the subject of the first global effort to use the laws and institutions of international trade to promote sustainable development in a key natural resource sector. The United States and New Zealand became the first governments to raise the issue of fisheries subsidies at the WTO, tabling separate papers before the WTO's Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) and calling for attention to the potential role the WTO could play in addressing the problem. The phenomenon of globalization had been stirring passions for years before the birth of the fisheries subsidies issue. The path fisheries subsidies took to Seattle was shaped by the political, ideological and commercial interests of a variety of government. In this context, the fisheries subsidies issue was primed for top-level attention from US policy-makers. In both industrial and environmental terms, aquaculture is an important factor affecting marine fisheries.
