Illustrative image (Source: VNA)

The meeting took place within the framework of the conference on building a regional convention on combating illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and fishery-related crimes (IUU conference). It brought together representatives from ASEAN member countries, excluding Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei, along w🧔ith those fr𝓰om the US, Australia, China and Timor-Leste. 

Based on opinions raisജed by the participating countries at the first and second IUU conferences in May and October 2016, Indonesia proposed changes in building regional IUU documents.&nbs🔯p;

Accordingly, Indonesia suggested the building oꦑf a regional cooperation agreement on combating fishery-related crimes. 

Delegates from Australia, the US, Timor-Leste, China and Vietnam highlighted the links between the future agreement with available international legal documents on cross-border crimes such as the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC) and the 1982 UN Convention on th⛦e Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). 

Regarding the agreement’s content, they focused discussions on its objective, regional and international cooperation, ho💞w to build capacity of parties in enforcement, market measures and fisheries-related crimes. 

The participants stressed the need to boost regional and international cooperation in fighting cross-border crimes. However, they noted that the agreement should not overlap other iꦍnter🙈national documents. 

Indonesia also proposed establishing a working group within the framework of the IUU co🍌nference. The proposal will be submitted to the third IUU conference scheduled for♊ next August.-VNA