The book examines whether the jurisdiction of coastal States under international law can be extended to include powers of intervention towards vessels posing a significant risk to their coastal and marine environment, but which have not yet been involved in any incident or accident. The books sets out how it is that coastal State jurisdiction can indeed be seen as including powers of intervention towards High Risks Vessels before an incident or accident happens, on the basis of the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle requires taking action when a risk of damage to the environment is suspected, but cannot be confirmed scientifically.The book thus considers the potential opportunities for the coastal state under international law to regulate international shipping where they consider vessels to an unacceptable risk to the environment, in order to prevent or minimise the risk of occurrence of the accident or incident leading to damage. The book acknowledges that this puts into question some very old and established principles of the law of the sea, most importantly the principle of freedom of navigation. But Bénédicte Sage-Fuller contends that this change would itself be a consequence of the evolution, since the end of WWII, of on the one hand international law of the sea itself, and of international environmental law on the other hand.

From fisheries to persistent organic pollutants to climate change itself, no other environmental principle in environmental law has produced as much controversy as the precautionary principle. Unlike a preventive approach in which action is taken provided that the threats to the environment are tangible, with a precautionary approach, authorities are prepared to tackle risks for which there is no definitive proof that the damage will materialize. The ramifications of this increasingly apparent approach are profound and cut across all areas of risk assessment and management, environmental law, policy and regulation in every major sector. However, to date little thought has been dedicated to the implementation of the precautionary principle in a wide array of environmental circumstances. This authoritative handbook addresses the legal aspects of how the precautionary principle is implemented in different sectors, and examines its successes, failures, strengths and weaknesses. Sectors and subjects covered include chemicals, GMOs, marine pollution, fisheries and nature conservation, and the book draws on cases in the EU, in the USA, and Nordic countries, where the use of precaution has been gathering momentum. Ultimately, the book provides an indispensable appraisal of the question - increasingly important in the era of human-induced climate change - of whether the precautionary principle is relevant, indeed essential, to avert major environmental and health risks, and how and when it can be used successfully. Published with MARIE CURIE ACTIONS

This book provides a comprehensive attempt to adopt an 'integrated' interdisciplinary approach to the study of fisheries. Fisheries are discussed as holistic 'systems', with emphasis on their structure, operation and dynamics. The book's interdisciplinary approach is applied to an analysis of problems faced in pursuing 'sustainable fisheries', with emphasis on six dominant themes: sustainability, uncertainty, complexity, conflict, fishing rights and the nature of management. Within this discussion, several major directions in current fishery thinking are explored, notably the precautionary approach, the ecosystem approach, co-management, and robust management for resilient fisheries.

Papers presented: 1) Reference points for fisheries management: the western Canadian experience; 2) Reference points for fisheries management: the eastern Canadian experience; 3) Reference points for fisheries management: the ICES experience; 4) Spawning stock biomass per recruit in fisheries management: foundation and current use; 5) The development of a management procedure for the South African anchovy resource; 6) How much spawning per recruit is enough?; 7) The behaviour of Flow, Fmed and Fhigh in response to variation in parameters used for their estimation; 8) The Barents Sea capelin stock collapse: a lesson to learn; 9) Variance estimates for fisheries assessment: their importance and how best to evaluate them; 10) Evaluating the accuracy of projected catch estimates from sequential population analysis and trawl survey abundance estimates; 11) Bootstrap estimates of ADAPT parameters, their projection in risk analysis and their retrospective patterns; 12) Analytical estimates of reliability for the projected yield from commercial fisheries; 13) Risk evaluation of the 10% harvest rate procedure for capelin in NAFO Division 3L; 14) Using jackknife and Monte Carlo simulation techniques to evaluate forecast models for Atlantic salmon; 15) Monte Carlo evaluation of risks for biological reference points used in New Zealand fishery assessments; 16) A comparison of event free risk analysis to Ricker spawner-recruit simulation: an example with Atlantic menhaden; 17) Choosing a management strategy for stock rebuilding when control is uncertain; 18) Risks and uncertainties in the management of a single-cohort squid fishery: the Falkland Islands Illex fishery as an example; 19) Risks of over- and under-fishing new resources; 20) Estimation of density-dependent natural mortality in British Columbia herring stocks through SSPA and its impact on sustainable harvesting strategies; 21) The comparative performance of production-model and ad hoc tuned VPA based feedback-control management procedures for the stock of Cape hake off the west coast of Africa; 22) A proposal for a threshold stock size and maximum fishing mortality rate; 23) Biological reference points for Canadian Atlantic gadoid stocks; 24) Stochastic locally-optimal harvesting; 25) ITQ based fisheries management; 26) Bioeconomic methods for determining TACs; 27) Management strategies: fixed or variable catch quotas; 28) Bioeconomic impacts of TAC adjustment strategies: a model applied to northern cod; 29) Experimental management programs for two rockfish stocks off British Columbia; 30)A brief overview of the experimental approach to reducing uncertainty in fisheries management; 31) Fisheries management organizations: a study of uncertainty.

The Newfoundland and Labrador cod fishery was once the most successful commercial fishery in the world. When it collapsed in 1992, many pointed to failures in management, such as uncontrolled harvesting, as likely culprits. Managed Annihilation makes the case that the idea of natural resource management itself was the problem. The collapse occurred when the fisheries were state-managed and still, two decades later, there is no recovery in sight. Although the collapse raised doubts among policy-makers about their ability to understand and control nature, their ultimate goal of control through management has not wavered and has been transferred from wild fish to fishermen and farmed cod.

In The International Seabed Authority and the Precautionary Principle, Aline L. Jaeckel offers an insightful analysis of the work of the International Seabed Authority and examines whether the Authority is implementing the precautionary principle in regulating and managing deep seabed minerals.