Nicaragua Joins as 101st WTO Member to Ratify Fisheries Subsidies Agreement.
International
On June 2, 2025, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General (DG) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), officially received Nicaragua’s instrument of acceptance for the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies from Rosalia Bohorquez Palacios, Nicaragua’s Ambassador to the WTO, during a ceremonial handover event held in Geneva, Switzerland.
- With this significant development, the WTO is set to operationalize the Fisheries Funding Mechanism, popularly known as the WTO Fish Fund, which aims to support developing and least-developed countries in implementing the agreement.
- The agreement will enter into force once two-thirds of WTO members—that is, 111 out of 164—formally ratify it. With 101 members having already accepted the agreement, only 10 more ratifications are required for it to take effect globally.
Main Point :- (i) The WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, adopted at the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) in June 2022, is a landmark deal aimed at promoting ocean sustainability by banning harmful fisheries subsidies. It is the first WTO agreement focused specifically on advancing environmental sustainability.
(ii) This agreement marks a historic milestone as the first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target to be fully achieved by WTO members. It prohibits subsidies that support Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, fishing activities in unregulated high seas beyond national jurisdictions, and the exploitation of overfished stocks.
(iii) The 13th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC13) is scheduled for February 2026 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), where further discussions and progress on such global trade issues are expected.
About World Trade Organization (WTO)
Director-General (DG) : Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Headquarters : Geneva, Switzerland
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