International agreements for conservation and environmental protection typically include both active measures to support compliance, and responsive measures to remedy cases of non- compliance. Positive measures include provisions for financial assistance to developing countries, including small island states, technology transfer, national reporting, cooperative research and monitoring, and centralized committees and secretariats that assemble and analyze compliance information.Measures to respond to non-compliance include provisions for reporting and investigation of non-compliance, formulation of collective enforcement responses to non-compliance cases, and — the subject of this paper — resolution of disputes about non- compliance.
In designing dispute resolution mechanisms and procedures, negotiators do not have to start with a blank slate. They will be guided by the goals of the negotiation, as well as the substantive principles of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the 1994 United Nations Agreement on Highly Migratory and Straddling Fish Stocks
(SSA).
Equally important, they will be working within the flexible procedural framework for dispute resolution established by the UNCLOS and the SSA. The new Pacific Convention represents the first opportunity to apply the UNCLOS framework as elaborated and enriched by the SSA. Finally, they can draw on lessons learned from the experience with international dispute settlement, not only in the area of high seas fisheries but in other areas of international law. This paper summarizes these sources of guidance.