International organizations and deep-sea fisheries: Current status and future prospects

This article addresses the role played by various international organizations such as the United Nations Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, various regional fisheries management organizations and the European Union in relation to the conservation and management of deep-sea fisheries. The activities performed by these organizations especially over the last fifteen years as well as the legal scope of the different documents adopted by them have revealed the existence of serious and complex problems in this field. This moreover allows us to identify, on the one hand, the main challenges the field currently poses to these same subjects of international law, and, on the other hand, to understand why the conservation and management of deep-sea fisheries are highly topical issues on the current agenda of these universal and regional organizations.