Chris Hedley - Publications

with Special Reference to the Conservation and Management of Marine Living Resources

This article provides a brief overview of the mountain of information now available on the Internet relating to the international law of the sea and, in particular, in the field of international fisheries, for which there is an enormous volume of information. The Internet is becoming an increasingly important resource for lawyers and law students, but finding the information you want remains difficult. This guide first explains a few Internet basics and then highlights some of the more useful and interesting sites available and directs the reader to locations where further information may be found.

It seems to be becoming more and more difficult to avoid the Internet. It is transcending almost all aspects of modern life from supermarket shopping to use in complex military technologies. Its use to the lawyer, university academic and student has long been recognised, although it often remains difficult to use or to find the particular item of information required. Furthermore, although there is now an almost inconceivable volume of information on the Internet, there is never any guarantee that what you are looking for is actually there. As an attempt to provide some general guidance and direction, this article seeks to highlight the main resources available and serve as a pointer to exploring the Internet further. Special reference will be made to international fisheries law both because this appears to be a subject for which a particularly large amount of information is available and also because it forms the major part of the author’s research.

In very simple terms, the Internet is a ‘network of networks’ which connects computers from all over the world. This can take various forms of which, contrary to popular belief, the “World Wide Web” is just one. Other components, such as mailing lists and Usenet news groups also offer considerable actual and potential utility, although they are less well-known, understood and used. The following paragraphs will briefly consider these main components, which are all referred to in the Resources section, below.[1]

The starting point for Internet users is usually the Web. This is the most ergonomic and most accessible part of the Internet. The Web allows users to access information stored on millions of computers around the world.[2] Technically speaking, it refers only to documents using the “HTML” (“hypertext markup language”) protocol,[3] which is a multimedia protocol that permits the user to retrieve not only text but also graphics, sounds and other media. In practice, however, the Web also connects up a variety of other protocols, such as the gopher protocol, which was an earlier method of transferring information and consists of text only files organized in hierarchical menu structures. One of the main problems for the researcher using the Web is that there is no system of organization to it. Although individual sites may be structured, pages and sites can be placed on the Web by anyone, anywhere without any referencing or indexing whatsoever. The conventional starting point for using the Web thus becomes one of the search engines such as Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) or Excite (www.excite.com). These facilities make searching the web a relatively easy task, although they are often not very efficient, as they usually return a large number of sites which are not connected with your particular query and they rarely find all the relevant sites on a particular subject.

Turning to the other components mentioned, the most useful to the legal researcher are undoubtedly mailing lists, sometimes called Listservs or Mailbases after the main providers of the technology. A mailing list is a service which enables subscribers to send and receive e-mail messages to and from all other subscribers to the list. They therefore act as forums to discuss issues, to share ideas and problems and to ask for help on difficult research questions. They can also be very convenient for posting and receiving announcements about the latest conferences, services, resources and publications and are often also very useful for the quick distribution of news. They are already widely used by librarians, who find such lists invaluable for getting help with obscure or difficult research questions. In short, such lists have immense possibilities, although, ultimately, the utility of a particular list depends on whether the interests of the subscribers match those of your own and whether significant use is made of the list by its members.

Usenet news groups are a similar concept to mailing lists in that they serve to promote discussion and information sharing amongst like-minded people. This service operates more like a bulletin board, however, where messages can be posted to the group and then read by anyone who wishes to read it. (The main difference is that messages are not delivered by e-mail). Although news groups have the potential to be useful forums for the discussion and information sharing, in practice little use is made of them and the quality of discussion in many groups is much lower than in mailing lists. A further problem is that, although there are more than 10,000 discussion groups, very few relate to legal or ocean issues.

The United Nations Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea (UNDOALOS) maintains an excellent site with a large quantity of up to date material (www.un.org/Depts/los/).[4] The texts of the Law of the Sea Convention and also of the Part XI and Straddling and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks implementation agreements are available, as well as other information relating to them, such as regularly updated lists of parties and, for the LOS Convention, declarations made upon signature and ratification and choices of dispute settlement procedures. There are also on-line reproductions of Secretary-General Reports, General Assembly Resolutions and Meetings of the States Parties, going back to 1994.[5] The UN also maintains a full - and searchable - reproduction of the UN Treaty Series (untreaty.un.org), although access is now subject to a subscription fee. There are, however, a large number of sites where the texts of international agreements can be downloaded freely. Among the better free sites are the following:

· The Internet Guide to International Fisheries Law (IGIFL),[6] Compendium of Legal Texts (www.oceanlaw.net/texts/): this site contains over 100 texts of agreements and other instruments relating to international fisheries law and also a number of general texts on the law of the sea and a number of texts on related issues, such as the protection of wildlife and habitats. In most cases, the texts are also accompanied by a summary page, which includes a list of parties;

· Environmental Treaties and Resource Indicators Service (ENTRI), (sedac.ciesin.org/pidb/): ENTRI is a large, searchable database of international environmental treaties, including many relating to the law of the sea (in particular marine pollution). In most cases the texts are accompanied by summaries and lists of parties, although the information is not generally very up to date;

· Tufts University Multilaterals Project, (fletcher.tufts.edu/multilaterals.html): a collection of international texts provided by the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Tufts University, US) organized into various sections, including one on marine and coastal agreements;

· American Society of International Law, Wildlife Interest Group, (www.eelink.net/asilwildlife): a large collection of international treaties, national laws and other material on wildlife protection, including collections on fisheries and other aspects of marine conservation.

There is no major or central source for finding information on matters such as territorial sea, EEZ or continental shelf claims. One or two sites on the Web provide basic information, the most useful one being the United States CIA’s World Fact Book (www.ocdi.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html), which contains summary and statistical information on all States recognized by the US Government, including notes on land and maritime claims and territorial disputes. The US Department of Defence has also reproduced an internal manual from 1997 on the Web, which contains information on all maritime claims and the titles of the domestic legislative instruments enacting these claims: web7.whs.osd.mil/html/20051m.htm. This is an excellent resource, although it is not very up-to-date. Finding the texts of the relevant domestic instruments can sometimes be a painful task, particular as in many cases the texts are not actually reproduced on the Web. Good starting places include:

· FAO FishLex Library (faolex.fao.org/fishery/index.html): a large, searchable database of basic information on and texts of national fisheries laws, including in some cases, laws relevant to EEZ and continental shelf claims;

· IGIFL, National information page (www.oceanlaw.net/netpath/page10.htm): several hundred links to national information on fisheries laws and policies, but a number of links relate to maritime claims;

· a site called Governments on the WWW (www.gksoft.com/govt/): a comprehensive list of links to governmental Websites, although many of the sites provide only basic information.

A number of sites address boundary dispute issues. The UNDOALOS pages contains some information on the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, including some documents (www.un.org/Depts/los/tempclcs/clcs.htm) and either the judgments or summaries of the judgments of relevant International Court of Justice (ICJ) cases are reproduced on the ICJ site at: www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/idecisions.htm. Other useful sites include the International Boundaries Research Unit (Durham University, UK) site (www.dur.ac.uk/~dgg0www1/index.html), which contains various information, a news section and a database of over 10,000 boundary-related reports from a wide-range of news sources dating from 1991 to approximately six months before the current date. (These are not all maritime issues, of course). There is also a mailing list, called int-boundaries, which is a forum for discussing international boundaries and other territorial issues. The list’s homepage is at: www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists-f-j/int-boundaries/.

Perhaps surprisingly, given the controversy it has generated, there is very little information on this subject. The International Seabed Authority maintains its own site (www.isa.org.jm), which contains various information and material, including on-line copies of relevant reports from the Authority and the UN General Assembly. The text of the Part XI agreement, along with some background information, is reproduced on the UNDOALOS site (www.un.org/Depts/los/unclos/closindx.htm), as is a table giving its current status (www.un.org/Depts/los/los94st.htm).[7]

There is quite a large amount of material on the protection of the marine environment on the Internet, corresponding to a large number of instruments and organizations. For general sources, try the marine environment page of the UNDOALOS site, at: www.un.org/Depts/los/los_me1.htm, which includes a basic overview and links to relevant Secretary-General Reports; or the Internet Pathfinder of IGIFL, at: www.oceanlaw.net/netpath/page7.htm, which contains approximately 300 links to material and information on the protection of the marine environment. Another excellent site, at least as regards pollution from ships, is the International Maritime Organization site: www.imo.org. This is an extensive website which contains a large amount of information and material, including on IMO conventions, and a large list of links to other Websites. A large number of regional organisations also maintain Websites. Generally the quality of these sites is excellent, containing texts and information on the constitutive treaties, information and documentation on measures taken. Among the sites are the following:

· Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (Helsinki Commission): www.helcom.fi

Also useful is the International Conferences on the Protection of the North Sea site (odin.dep.no/nsc/), maintained by the Norwegian Government, which provides various information on the North Sea Conferences, including documents from meetings and the texts of the Ministerial Declarations adopted at the Conferences.

Information on other organizations and programmes under the United Nations Environment Programme’s Regional Seas Programme can be found at: http://www.unep.org/water/regseas/regseas.htm, although the quantity and quality of information on the different regional programmes varies.[8]

The judicial settlement of disputes in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) is well documented, with both bodies providing excellent on-line resources. The ICJ site (www.icj-cij.org) contains a large collection of information, including reproductions of the basic documents of the Court (ICJ Statute, Rules of the Court, etc.) and information on all pending and past cases and advisory opinions. For recent cases, the full judgments and related documents (such as applications, oral and written statements and press releases) can be accessed on-line. For the older cases, only summaries of the judgments are currently provided. Information on ITLOS is provided on the UNDOALOS site. Basic information on the Tribunal can be accessed from the international organizations page (www.un.org/Depts/los/los_io.htm/#ITLOS); basic procedural documents (including the Rules of the Tribunal) from the procedures and cases page (www.un.org/Depts/los/ITLOS/ITLOSproc.htm); and on-line copies of all ITLOS judgments, along with copies of related verbatim records and press releases can be accessed from the main page.

For more general information on the relevant law, institutions and procedures, reference might be had to the UNDOALOS settlement of disputes page (www.un.org/Depts/los/los_disp.htm), which includes not only an overview but also provides a list of the choices of procedure made by parties under Article 287 (www.un.org/Depts/los/los_sdm1.htm). The UN has also published a very informative handbook on the ICJ, providing an overview of its history, composition, jurisdiction, procedure and decisions. An on-line version is available at: www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/igeneralinformation/ibbook/Bbookframepage.htm.

There is an overwhelming mass of information on the conservation and management of marine living resources on the Internet. The following is a very general - and far from exhaustive - overview of the more important sites.

There are a small number of useful general resources on the Internet for this subject. The UNDOALOS site, for example, provides the text of the UN Fish Stocks Agreement (www.un.org/Depts/los/unclos/closindx.htm), as well as a table giving its current status (www.un.org/Depts/los/los94st.htm), a number of basic documents from the Conference and copies of the Secretary-General Reports and General Assembly Resolutions on the Fish Stocks Agreement and other fisheries issues, such as driftnet fishing, bycatch and discards and unauthorized fishing in zones of national jurisdiction. The Fisheries Department of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also maintains a useful site (www.fao.org/fi/). The texts of the “Compliance Agreement” and the Code of Conduct are reproduced, as is a large collection of other material on the Code, including the Technical Guidelines and reports from FAO regional fisheries bodies (www.fao.org/fi/agreem/codecond/codecon.asp). Other information on the FAO site includes, information and material on recent Sessions of the Committee on Fisheries, the texts of and information on legal instruments and other activities the FAO is connected with, information on FAO regional fisheries bodies and various literature and statistical information on fisheries resources. In general these can be accessed from the main page, although use of the site map may also be required (www.fao.org/fi/site.asp). The main unofficial site which deals with the conservation and management of marine living resources is the Internet Guide to International Fisheries Law (op. cit.), which provides various sections of information and material.

An ever-growing number of international organizations are placing official Websites on the Internet. The quality of these sites and the information they contain is quite variable, however.[9] Some provide only basic information about the organization and its activities, while others provide a variety of material, including the basic documents of the organization, meetings reports, scientific reports, adopted measures, and press releases. The following is a list of the international fisheries organizations which maintain their own websites:

· Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR): www.ccamlr.org

· Convention for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT): www.home.aone.net.au/ccsbt/index.html

· Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC): www.iattc.org (under construction)

· International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT): www.iccat.es

· International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC): www.iphc.washington.edu/halcom/

Information on other FAO regional bodies not listed above may be found on the FAO website (www.fao.org/fi/body/body.asp), although, with the exception of the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM), there is very little detailed information or material.

The principal scientific organizations also maintain their own Websites. Although, again, the quantity of information and material available varies:

· International Commission for the Scientific Exploration of the Mediterranean Sea (CIESM): www.ciesm.org

Another website that is worth mentioning at this juncture is the European Community website, Europa (europa.eu.int). This contains an enormous amount of information, including a considerable amount on fisheries. In particular, the Directorate-General for Fisheries has its own section - europa.eu.int/comm/dg14/dg14.html - and all the Community legislation in force in the field of fisheries (including international agreements) is reproduced on the EUR-Lex server at: europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/lif/ind/en_analytical_index_04.html. Other links to EC fisheries law are maintained on the IGIFL site at: www.oceanlaw.net/netpath/page11.htm.

There is plenty of information on specific issues of fisheries law (straddling stocks, highly migratory stocks, anadromous stocks, etc.) on the Internet. The quality of this information is highly variable and one should always act with caution as the information is not always accurate or impartial. As regards straddling stocks, the Northwest Atlantic fisheries are the best documented, with various resources being provided by NAFO (op. cit.) and the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) (www.ncr.dfo.ca). There also remains a considerable amount of material on the 1995 Greenland halibut dispute.[10] Other regions are not so well represented but there is some degree of information for most regions. Similarly, the best documented region for highly migratory stocks is the Atlantic, with much of the information being provided by ICCAT (op. cit.) and the United States National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) (www.nmfs.gov). In most other regions, some information is provided by the relevant organization, including, in most cases, copies of recent reports. Another item of interest is the FAO International Plan of Action for the Conservation and Management of Sharks, which is reproduced, along with copies of relevant meetings reports, on the FAO website at: www.fao.org/fi/ipa/manage.asp. As regards anadromous stocks there is a mountain of information on Pacific salmon, but relatively little on Atlantic salmon. Most of the information on the former, much of which is provided by regional bodies of the NMFS, is of a rather localized nature. There relevant international organizations also maintain websites. The principal sites of an international nature are listed on the IGIFL site at: www.oceanlaw.net/netpath/page4an.htm. Other lists of links, including many more localized nature, are maintained by the NMFS (at www.nmfs.gov/salmon/salmon.html) and by Gadus Associates, a Canadian fisheries consultancy firm (at home.istar.ca/~gadus/source5.html#nepac).[11]

Of all fisheries issues, the one which has generated most material is, without doubt, marine mammals. There are literally hundreds of sites which deal, to some extent, with these species. The majority of these come from non-governmental organizations, large and small, although there is also a significant amount of information from inter-governmental organizations and from national governments. The two principal international organizations maintain their own websites, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) (ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/iwcoffice/) and the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO) (www.nammco.no), although neither of these sites provide significant quantities of information. Specifically, neither site provides copies of meetings reports, although, as regards the IWC, in particular, many non-governmental organisations produce papers on the meetings[12] and a Japanese site entitled ‘Whaling Information from Japan’ (luna.pos.to/whale/) provides various extracts from IWC Chairman’s Reports, going back to 1968. Other relevant agreements or arrangements which maintain information on the Web include the following:

· Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic and North Seas (ASCOBANS): www.ascobans.org (further information also at: www.wcmc.org.uk/cms/asc_bkrd.htm);

· Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Contiguous Atlantic Area: www.wcmc.org.uk/cms/acc_bkrd.htm;

· Agreement for the Conservation of Seals in the Wadden Sea: www.wcmc.org.uk/cms/english/sea_text.htm;

· Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES): www.wcmc.org.uk/cites/;

· Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats: www.coe.fr/eng/legaltxt/104e.htm;

· UNEP Mediterranean Action Programme: www.unep.map (includes information on the Protocol Concerning Specially Protected Areas and Biological Diversity in the Mediterranean and the Cetacean and Monk Seal Action Plans).

It is often the case as regards marine mammals, however, that the most informative sites are provided by environmental groups and other non-governmental organisations. In particular, Greenpeace (www.greenpeace.org), the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (www.wdcs.org) and, presenting the other side of the arguments, the High North Alliance (www.highnorth.no) maintain interesting sites. The ‘Whaling Information from Japan’ site is also a useful resource. Other information, both on marine mammal conservation and exploitation and on related issues, such as driftnet fishing and other bycatch issues such as the tuna-dolphin problem (and also the shrimp-turtle issue), is scattered around the Web, but is often worth reading.[13] A word of caution should be added, however. Whilst the better sites provide information which is well-researched, accurate and - sometimes - objective, in many cases, the information available is none of these things and this should be borne in mind when researching Internet resources on this topic.

The Web can also be a useful resource for finding fisheries information at the national level. Most governments now maintain their own websites, which generally contain at least some basic information on their fisheries departments. Some of the more developed governmental sites contain an incredible amount of information, including in several cases, on-line copies of all relevant legislation. An extensive list of sites providing national information on fisheries is available on the IGIFL site, at: www.oceanlaw.net/netpath/page10.htm. This list covers most of the major resources where information can be found, with the exception of the FAO FishLex Library (op. cit.), which provides a large database of national fisheries laws.

Finally a mention should be made of the relevant mailing lists and news groups. The most relevant mailing list appears to be the OceanLaw list, which is dedicated to the discussion of international fisheries law, the conservation and management of living marine resources and related issues, although this is in the early stages of development.[14] Another very useful list, which is also very active, is the Fishfolk list, which discusses fisheries issues on a multi-disciplinary basis.[15] Another list which can often be useful, which is dedicated to marine mammals, is Marmam, although this list can sometimes be rather scientific.[16] As regards Usenet news groups, the only group which might be of interest, to the author’s knowledge, is a little known United States government news service: gov.us.topic.nat-resources.marine. This group contains regular fisheries and aquaculture related announcements from relevant US bodies, such as the NMFS and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

A matter of some uncertainty - which sometimes induces a reluctance to use Internet sources - is the question of citation. There are no set formulas, although it should be pointed out, of course, that there is not one standard system for the referencing of other sources. The following brief comments are offered as suggestions or guidelines, although various other forms of citation can be observed. First, it is suggested that in most cases the prefix http:// can be omitted (i.e., the full address of a Website might be http://www.website.org, but it can be referenced as: www.website.org). The http:// prefix refers to the protocol which transfers information across the Internet (in this case, the hypertext transfer protocol). It is important to note, however, that some information - including many UN documents- is placed on the Internet via other protocols, such as gopher or ftp. In these cases, for clarity, it may be preferable to include the protocol prefix, as not all Web browsers will automatically recognize the different protocol.[17] Secondly, where possible or appropriate, the author and publication date of a site should be given. This also makes repeated references to the site more convenient, as subsequent references may be to the author, thus avoiding the need to repeat URLs (the technical name for a Website address). Where subsequent references are to a particular page in the Website, however, for clarity, the entire URL should be given. A final point worth remembering is that there is a lot of duplication of material on the Internet and it is therefore always prudent to refer to the most authoritative site available. In some cases this may involve a value judgement, although in many cases the hierarchical authority will be clear. For example, the LOS Convention is reproduced in an enormous number of locations, but it would appear to make sense to refer to the United Nations Website.

There can be no doubt that in recent years, the Internet has become an essential reference tool for legal researchers. It allows access to vast quantities of material and information in a convenient manner, enabling the researcher to use material that might not easily have been available otherwise. Through resources such as mailing lists, it also enables the connecting of like-minded people and the sharing of information, ideas and problems in a manner that was simply not possible before. Furthermore, whilst it remains true that much of the information is of poor quality or from unreliable sources, there is an increasing amount of material being placed on the Internet by international organizations, universities and qualified people meaning that there is also now a large amount of high quality information and material from excellent and reliable sources. The Internet remains below traditional (paper) sources in terms of an authority hierarchy - a point underlined on many websites of international organizations which use disclaimers to point out that the documents contained therein are only reproductions and are not official - and it appears that that the status quo will be unchanged for some time. Nevertheless, the Internet should be an integral part of any lawyer’s research tools and, where appropriate, should be credited as such. [18]

* The author is grateful to Dr Robin Churchill of Cardiff Law School for reading a draft of this article. All errors or omissions naturally remain the sole responsibility of the author.

[1] This is not a technical guide to the Internet. For more detailed and more technical guides, try, from amongst an immense literature, Kennedy, A. J., The Internet and World Wide Web: the Rough Guide, 3^rd ed., (London: Rough Guides, 1997); Cooke, A., A Guide to Finding Quality Information on the Internet, (London: Library Association Publishing, 1999); and Holmes, N. and D. Venables, Researching the Legal Web, (London: Butterworths, 1999).

[2] It has been estimated that, in July 1999, there were more than 56 million host computers connected to the Internet around the world: see Zakon, R. H., Hobbe’s Internet Timeline, Version 5.0, info.isoc.org/zakon/internet/history/hit.html, (2000).

[3] A protocol is a set of data exchange rules which specify how computers transmit data between different computers and across networks.

[4] For a list of all UN organizations, see the UN System of Organizations site at: www.unsystem.org/.

[5] Other General Assembly Resolutions, including some on the law of the sea not included in the UNDOALOS pages, are available at: gopher://gopher.un.org/11/ga/recs/.

[6] Hedley, C., The Internet Guide to International Fisheries Law, www.oceanlaw.net, (2000), hereafter IGIFL. This site also maintains a list of further sites which maintain collections of treaty texts, at: www.oceanlaw.net/netpath/page3.htm#treaties.

[7] For a brief list of articles from various sources on this issue, see IGIFL, ibid., Internet Pathfinder, Part 8.

[8] Links to the constitutive conventions and protocols of these programmes and organizations, which are not always reproduced on the UNEP site, may be found in IGIFL, ibid., Part 7.

[9] In general, however, it may be observed that these sites are gradually all improving in terms of quantity and in terms of quality.

[10] IGIFL, op. cit., n. 6, Internet Pathfinder, Part 4.

[1] For further links on straddling, highly migratory and anadromous stocks, see IGIFL, ibid.

[12] For a list of these, see the IGIFL, ibid., Part 5.

[13] See further, IGIFL, ibid., Parts 5 and 6.

[14] Subscription information for the OceanLaw list can be found on the IGIFL site, op. cit., n. 6, at: www.oceanlaw.net/bulletin/list.htm.

[15] Subscription information for the Fishfolk list can be found on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sea Grant site at: web.mit.edu/seagrant/www/fishfolk.html.

[16] The Marmam homepage is at: is.dal.ca/~whitelab/marmam.htm.

[17] An example would be gopher://gopher.website.org/.

[18] All links in this guide, along with a large number of others, are reproduced in the Internet Guide to International Fisheries Law, Internet Pathfinder, at: www.oceanlaw.net/netpath/.