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NOTE: In accordance to Article IX (5) of the IOTC Agreement, India has objected to IOTC Resolutions 13/02, 13/03, 13/06 and 13/07 adopted at the Seventeenth Session of the IOTC (Mauritius, 6–10 May 2013). According to the Article IX of the Agreement, and given the objection by India, an extension period of 60 days (until November 13 2013) now applies before the 4 IOTC Resolutions 13/02, 13/03, 13/06 and 13/07, come into force, unless one-third of the members also object.
Resolution 12/07 is superseded for all Members except India as of 14 November 2013 and remains binding on: India
The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC),
RECOGNISING that coastal States have sovereign rights in a 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) with respect to their natural resources;
CONSCIOUS of the provisions of Article 62 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea;
NOTING that the information on vessels licensed to fish in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of IOTC Members and Cooperating non-Contracting Parties (CPCs), constitutes a means to identify potential unreported fishing activities;
MINDFUL of the recommendation 17 of the Performance Review Panel, as listed in Resolution 09/01 on the performance review follow-up, that the obligation incumbent to a flag State to report data for its vessels be included in a separate Resolution from the obligation incumbent on Members to report data on the vessels of third countries they licence to fish in their EEZs.
AWARE of the data reporting requirements for all CPCs and the importance of complete statistical reporting to the work of the Scientific Community, its Working Parties and the Commission;
MINDFUL of the need to ensure transparency among CPCs, in particular to facilitate joint efforts to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing;
RECALLING the duties of CPCs concerning IUU fisheries as stated in the Resolution 11/03 establishing a list of vessels presumed to have carried out illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in the IOTC area of competence, which requires CPCs to ensure that their vessels do not conduct fishing activities within areas under the national jurisdiction of other States without authorisation and/or infringe the coastal State's laws and resolutions;
ADOPTS, in accordance with the provisions of Article IX, paragraph 1 of the IOTC Agreement, the following:
All CPCs which issue licenses to foreign flag vessels to fish in their EEZ for species managed by the IOTC in the IOTC Area of Competence (hereinafter referred to as “the Area”), shall submit to the Secretary, by 15 February every year, a list of all foreign flag vessels to which such licences have been issued during the previous year.
This list shall contain the following information for each vessel:
In cases where coastal CPCs allow foreign-flagged vessels to fish in waters in their EEZ in the IOTC Area for species managed by IOTC through a CPC–to–CPC agreement, CPCs involved in the referred agreement shall jointly notify the Commission prior to beginning fishing activities of the existence of such agreements and provide to the Commission information concerning these agreements, including:
For agreements in existence prior to the entry into force of this Resolution, the information specified in paragraph 3 shall be provided, at the latest, 60 days in advance of the 2013 Commission meeting.
When an access agreement is modified in a manner that changes any of the information specified in paragraph 3, these changes shall be promptly notified to the Commission.
The Secretariat shall report the information specified in this Resolution annually to the Commission at its annual meeting.
This Resolution shall be consistent with domestic confidentiality requirements of the coastal CPC and the flag CPC concerned.
IOTC Resolution 10/07 Concerning a record of licenced vessels fishing for tunas and swordfish in the IOTC Area is superseded by this Resolution.
