E - Iccat

3 rd WG FUTURE OF ICCAT – MADRID 2012
4.2 REPORT OF THE 3 rd MEETING OF THE WORKING GROUP ON THE FUTURE OF ICCAT
(Madrid, Spain – May 28 to 31, 2012)
1. Opening of the meeting
The Chair, Ms. Deirdre Warner Kramer (USA), opened the meeting and welcomed the delegations to the Third
Meeting of the Working Group on the Future of ICCAT. She proposed to deal with the matters already opened
and under discussion from the previous meeting as well as the matters proposed by the CPCs in the documents
circulated in advance of the meeting.
2. Nomination of the Rapporteur
In the absence of a volunteer from among the delegations, the ICCAT Secretariat was requested to serve as
rapporteur.
3. Adoption of Agenda and meeting arrangements
The Agenda was adopted with the inclusion of an item on Monitoring, Control and Surveillance (MCS) under
Agenda item 5 as proposed by the delegation of the United States. The revised Agenda is attached as Appendix
1 to ANNEX 4.2.
The Executive Secretary introduced the following 21 Contracting Parties that attended the meeting: Algeria,
Brazil, Canada, European Union, Ghana, Guinea Republic, Japan, Korea (Rep.), Libya, Mauritania, México,
Morocco, Namibia, Norway, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom (Overseas
Territories), United States of America and Uruguay. The List of Participants is attached as Appendix 2 to
ANNEX 4.2.
The Executive Secretary also introduced Chinese Taipei that attended the meeting as a Cooperating non-
Contracting Party, Entity or Fishing Entity. The Conférence Ministérielle sur la Coopération Halieutique entre
les Etats Africains Riverains de l’Océan Atlantique (COMHAFAT) attended the meeting as an observer from an
inter-governmental organisation.
The following non-governmental organisations were admitted as observers: International Seafood Sustainability
Foundation (ISSF) and the Pew Environment Group.
Dr. Gerry Scott attended the meeting, as consultant of the GEF project, to present information on the global tuna
project being sponsored by the FAO and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF). The list of observers is
included in the List of Participants (see Appendix 2 to ANNEX 4.2).
4. Discussion of appropriate next steps to address issues identified by CPCs
Norway and the United States each presented papers highlighting priority issues for any future process to amend
the ICCAT Convention, including possible options for text. Both papers touched on a number of the specific
topics discussed below. Norway’s document is attached to this report as Appendix 3 to ANNEX 4, and the U.S.
document is attached as Appendix 4 to ANNEX 4.2.
4.a Precautionary Approach
The Working Group agreed that the precautionary approach was fundamental to ICCAT’s objectives and noted
that ICCAT had already taken some steps to implement the precautionary approach even without a specific
provision defining the precautionary approach in the Convention. Some participants noted it would not be
necessary to formally incorporate reference to the Precautionary Approach in the Convention to continue to
implement it in ICCAT. Nonetheless, most participants agreed that text to enshrine the concept of the
precautionary approach should be considered in any future Convention amendment process.
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