The meeting discussed three main items: major issues affecting the performance of regional fishery bodies; a multifaceted approach to fishery status and trends reporting; and regional fishery bodies as vehicles for good fishery governance.

The meeting reviewed the decisions of the Twenty-fifth Session of the Committee on Fisheries (COFI) of relevance to regional fishery bodies and FAO Fisheries Circular No. 985 containing summary information about RFBs.

The session agreed on a vision statement and on a characterization of small-scale fisheries as well as on a research agenda of five main themes. It elaborated preliminary drafts of two separate technical documents on the contribution, role and importance of small-scale fisheries and research agenda for small-scale fisheries and requested that the documents be submitted, after finalization by the Secretariat, to the ACFR at its next session

The Committee agreed to establish a Sub-Committee on Aquaculture and adopted the International Plan of Action to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IPOA-IUU) Fishing. It agreed that future reporting on the implementation of the Code of Conduct and related IPOAs should be based on in-depth analysis of problems associated with their efficient implementation, using case studies.

Now in its 17th year, the NILOS Documentary Yearbook provides the reader with an excellent collection of documents related to ocean affairs and the law of the sea, issued each year by organizations, organs and bodies of the United Nations system. Documents of the UN General Assembly and Security Council, Meeting of States Parties to the UN Law of the Sea Convention, CLCS, ISBA, ITLOS, Follow-ups to the UN Fish Stocks and Small Island States Conferences, WSSD, ECOSOC, UNEP and UNCTAD are reproduced first, followed by the documents of FAO, IAEA, IMO and NESCO/IOC. As in the previous volumes, documents which were issued in the course of 2001 are reproduced while other relevant documents are listed. The NILOS Documentary Yearbook has proved to be of invaluable assistance in facilitating access of the international community of scholars and practitioners in ocean affairs and the law of the sea to essential documentation. The entry of the 1982 UN Law of the Sea Convention into force in 1994 and of the Part XI Agreement in 1996, as well as of the UN Fish Stocks Agreement in 2001, coupled with the review of the UNCED Agenda 21 the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit, make continuation of this assistance of particular significance in the years to come. The members of the Yearbook's Advisory Board are: Judges Abdul Koroma and Shigeru Oda of the ICJ, UNDOALOS Director Mrs. Annick de Marffy, ITLOS President Dolliver Nelson and Judges Thomas Mensah and Tullio Treves, as well as Rosalie Balkin, Edward Brown, Bernard Oxman and Shabtai Rosenne.

This book examines the legality, adequacy and efficacy of using the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) for commercially-exploited fish species and assesses whether the existing institutional cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) is efficient. This case-study also provides an interesting lens to approaching wider international law issues. Indeed, finding ways to achieve effective governance of transboundary or global natural resources is central to the peaceful use of oceans and land. Furthermore, the role of science in advising decision-makers is a sensitive issue, which deserves scrutiny and is similar in many regimes. Finally, the complex problem of fragmentation of international law is acute in various fields of environmental law, as in all rapidly developing areas of international regulations.