From open access to private property: Recent innovations in fishing rights as instruments of fisheries policy

Abstract

As pressures on ocean fisheries have grown, pervasive evidence of over‐exploited resources and economic distress has revealed fundamental weaknesses in traditional regulatory policies. In their search for new management approaches, fishing nations have recently turned their attention to the nature of fishing rights, and the trend is clearly toward more well‐defined, exclusive property rights. In a remarkably short time the tradition of open access to ocean fisheries has waned; rights to most of the world's fish resources have been appropriated by coastal states, their governments have excluded everyone from access to the stocks except those who hold licenses, and increasingly, the rights of license holders are quantitatively specified. Experience so far suggests that strengthening the property rights of fishing enterprises is a promising means of improving the management of marine resources as well as the economic performance of fishing industries, and it portends profound changes in fishing regimes.