Making Fishery Agreements Work Post-Agreement Bargaining in the Barents Sea

‘This book provides very detailed insights to how fisheries agreements can shape norms and set standards leading to a high degree of compliance and well-managed fisheries. It gives a very comprehensive description of the development of the management of the Barents Sea fishery since the 1990s, including an impressive account of the Norwegian–Russian fisheries negotiations. Geir Hønneland provides an important contribution to and further advances our understanding on the factors influencing rule-compliance in fisheries and in fact beyond.’
– Jesper Raakjær, Aalborg University, Denmark

‘In Making Fishery Agreements Work, Geir Hønneland extends his reputation as a leading scholar on Norwegian/Russian fisheries relationships. His new contribution focuses on the complicated and hard to track post-bargaining processes that can be used to improve compliance over time in situations with large power differentials. Well grounded in compliance theory and common property resource management, Hønneland’s interviews and personal observations capture the empirical motivations that underlie compliance in the joint Barents Sea fisheries.’
– David Fluharty, University of Washington, US

‘Fishing vessels plying the cold waters of the Barents Sea provide the empirical basis for this extraordinary effort to answer the question of what it takes for people and their governments to make and stick to agreements and follow the rules. Based on years of study of arrangements between Norway and the Soviet Union/Russia and interviews with the captains of the fishing ships that seek cod and other species in the far north, Hønneland brings findings and theory from many disciplines to the question. In so doing he offers a powerful argument about how post-agreement bargaining at both state and individual levels contributes to compliance and hence sustainable fisheries.’
– Bonnie McCay, Rutgers University, US

‘Environmental governance is not just a matter of laying down clear rules and regulations and then finding ways to enforce them. Developing the idea of “post-agreement bargaining” and drawing on his exceptional knowledge of the world-class fisheries of the Barents Sea, Geir Hønneland illuminates the ongoing processes of interpretation, mutual accommodation, and adjustment to changing circumstances that play an essential role in making environmental regimes work.’
– Oran Young, University of California, Santa Barbara, US

Why do people obey the law? And why do states abide by their international commitments? These are among the questions raised in this important book. The setting is the Barents Sea, home to some of the most productive fishing grounds on the planet, including the world’s largest cod stock. Norway and Russia manage these fish resources together, in what appears to be a successful exception to the rule of failed fisheries management: stocks are in good shape, institutional cooperation is expanding and takes place in a constructive atmosphere. The author argues that post-agreement bargaining helps activate norms and establish standard operating procedure that furthers precautionary fisheries management.

The Barents Sea fishery is seen as one of the best-managed international fisheries in the world, and the book specifically enquires into the lessons to be learnt from the Norwegian–Russian partnership. It will therefore prove to be of invaluable interest to practitioners, scholars and policy-makers working in the field of fisheries management and environmental agreements.