16 U.S.C. § 1826i — Action to strengthen international fishery management organizations

(a) In general. The Secretary, after consulting the Secretary of State and working with relevant fishery management councils and advisory committees, must take steps to make international fishery management organizations and arrangements under international fishery agreements more effective at conserving and managing the fish stocks under their authority. The steps must include: (1) Urging international fishery management organizations of which the United States is a member— (A) to use multilateral market measures against member or nonmember governments whose vessels engage in illegal, unreported, or unregulated fishing; (B) to adopt shareable lists identifying fishing vessels and owners involved in such fishing; (C) to seek a centralized international vessel-monitoring system that monitors and records the capacity of fleets from all nations fishing in areas under an organization’s authority; (D) to use more observers and technology, including vessel-monitoring and automatic-identification systems, to check compliance with the organization’s conservation and management rules; (E) to adopt stronger port-state controls in all nations, especially nations where vessels involved in such fishing land or transfer fish; and (F) to adopt shark-conservation rules, including rules banning removal of any shark fin, including the tail, and banning throwing the shark’s body into the sea. (2) Urging those organizations and all their members to adopt and expand market measures against such fishing, including— (A) import bans, landing limits, and other market measures needed to enforce organizational rules such as quotas and catch limits; (B) import limits and other market measures preventing trade in or import of fish caught by vessels multilaterally identified as engaging in such fishing; and (C) catch-documentation and certification systems that improve tracking and identification of catches from such vessels, including sending catch documents to ports of entry in advance. (3) Seeking international agreements requiring shark-conservation measures comparable to United States measures, including the two shark-fin and carcass-discarding prohibitions above, while considering different conditions. (4) Urging other nations, at bilateral, regional, and international levels, including the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora and the World Trade Organization, to take all steps needed, consistently with international law, to prevent fish and other living marine resources harvested by vessels engaged in such fishing from being traded or imported into their nations or territories. (b) Disclosure of information. (1) In general. Subject to the data-confidentiality rules in section 402 of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, except for paragraph (2), the Secretary may disclose information when necessary and appropriate. This includes information collected under that Act, the Atlantic Tunas Convention Act of 1975, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Convention Implementation Act, or another law implementing an international fishery agreement. The recipient may be another Federal or State agency, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, or the secretariat or equivalent of an international fishery organization or arrangement. The recipient government, organization, or arrangement must have policies and procedures protecting the information from unintended or unauthorized disclosure. (2) Exceptions. The data-confidentiality rules do not apply under this Act—(A) to United States duties to share information under a regional fisheries management organization, as that term is defined in the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing, when the United States is a member; or (B) to information the Secretary collected about foreign vessels. (c) IUU vessel lists. The Secretary may—(1) create, maintain, and publish a list of vessels and owners involved in illegal, unreported, or unregulated fishing, or in fishing-related support for it. The list may include vessels or owners identified by an international organization or arrangement under an international fishery agreement that (A) the United States is party to, or (B) the United States is not party to but whose listing procedures and criteria are substantially like those adopted under an agreement to which the United States is party; and (2) take suitable action against listed vessels and owners, including against fish, fish parts, and fish products from them, under United States law and consistently with international law, including applicable international fishery-management and trade agreements. (d) Regulations. The Secretary may issue regulations carrying out this section.