Taiwan will officially become a member of the Commission for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean in June this year.
This will be the nation's first successful full-course participation in the negotiation process of an international organization since the nation's withdrawal from the UN in 1978.
It will require further review and final ratification by the legislature.
Premier Yu Shyi-kun said that the meaning of participating in the commission is threefold.
"In addition to participating in the commission's decision-making process, we get to elevate our international image by partaking in the commission's conservation efforts of fish stocks in the western and central Pacific Ocean," Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (
"The diplomatic success also gives a positive gloss to the government's efforts to push for participation in regional international organizations in the future," he said.
Yu made the remarks yesterday morning after listening to briefings on the matter presented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Council of Agriculture during the weekly closed-door Cabinet meeting.
The Convention on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean is one of the first regional fisheries agreements to be adopted since the conclusion of the UN Fish Stocks Agreement in 1995. The convention will come into force on June 19 this year.
The objective of the convention is to ensure the long-term conservation and sustainable use of highly migratory fish stocks in the western and central Pacific Ocean, in accordance with the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and the 1995 UN Fish Stocks Agreement.
For this purpose, the convention establishes a Commission for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. The contracting parties to the convention are, ipso facto, members of the commission.
The convention was open for signature by the states participating in the multilateral high-level conference on conservation for a period of 12 months since Sept. 5, 2000. As of Dec. 19 last year, 13 states had signed the convention and deposited instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession in the treaty archives of the New Zealand Government.
The convention also contains special arrangements for participation by fishing entities and by territories situated within the convention area. Taiwan signed an agreement for the participation of fishing entities to participate in the adoption of the convention on Sept. 5, 2000.
The high-level conference on conservation invited Taiwan to participate in the conference as a fishing entity on June 1997.
States, territories and fishing entities represented at the second session of the conference declared their commitment to establish a mechanism for the conservation and management of highly migratory fish stocks inside an overall time-frame of three years, as from June, 1997.
After coming into force, contracting parties may, by consensus, invite other states and regional economic integration organizations, whose nationals and fishing vessels fish for highly migratory fish stocks in the convention area, to accede to the convention.
Commission members are subject to the fulfillment of the commission's domestic legal requirements, including participating in the preparatory conference.
The first session of the preparatory conference was convened by New Zealand, the depositary of the convention, at Christchurch, New Zealand from April 23 to April 28, 2001.
The sixth session of the preparatory conference will take place in Bali, Indonesia, from April 19 to April 23 this year to decide on the venue and time for the commission's inaugural session.
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