Fishing and Fairness: the Justice of the Common Fisheries Policy

Abstract

This chapter discusses the normative rather than the empirical dimensions of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). It focuses on the ethical or moral issues raised by questions of equity or distributive justice. The reason why I have chosen this topic is partly because little or nothing has been published on it, and partly because fairness is a very important element of the CFP, highly relevant to its acceptability to fishers.² It is often argued that the fairness of the CFP is a precondition of its compliance, but rarely, if ever, is that fairness examined. The aim of this discussion is to help fill this gap.

I am grateful to Peter Jones, Derek Bell, Mark Bevir, Simon Caney, Ella Ritchie and Tony Zito for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter.