Tragedy in the Marine Commons: The Intertwined Exploitation of Ocean Ecosystems and Fisheries Workers
Alongside eight other internationally recognised NGOs, Human Rights at Sea has been engaged with and leant its weight to a core working group looking at the continued exploitation of fisheries workers at sea and the connections between human rights and labour abuses in the fishing sector with the practices of overfishing and illegal, unreported, unregulated (IUU) fishing.
Working with representatives from the Environmental Justice Foundation, Fairfood International, Greenpeace, International Labor Rights Forum, International Transport Workers’ Federation, International Union of Food, Allied Workers National Guestworker Alliance and Walk Free Foundation, a combined submission letter was recently sent to the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, Mr. John Knox.
SUBMISSION
“Pursuant to Human Rights Council Resolution 28/11, the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment has invited stakeholders and civil society members to submit contributions for the preparation of the thematic report on biodiversity and human rights. This mandate is especially timely and pertinent given ongoing threats to the health and safety of our oceans and the people who work in them. As longtime observers of the seafood industry, it is clear that the last few decades of rapid biodiversity loss at sea are largely attributed to the fishing sector and have direct links to human rights violations, both of which feed back to each other in a vicious cycle of ocean destruction. Given the urgency of the situation, several organizations and experts have joined together to prepare the present submission…”