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Another international mandate is the Kyoto Protocol. Dealing with the carbon emissions of developed nations, this agreement is concerned with staving off the projected disastrous effects of global warming. Each country receives a pre-determined limit on the amount of carbon its factories and industries release into the atmosphere, prompting nations to find more environmentally friendly means of conducting business. Like the case of the ocean's fisheries, the atmosphere is an international resource that is threatened by the actions of every person on Earth, with consequences that can disrupt the livelihood of the entire world. Unfortunately, conforming to the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol is extremely costly; though potentially beneficial in the long term, the immediate costs often deter nations from agreeing, let alone complying, to the Kyoto Protocol. Furthermore, the current punitive measures stated in the agreement have proved to be worthless; nations that exceed their carbon limit are supposed to do better the year after, and the economic sanctions are minor to nonexistent. Aside from being loosely enforced, the punishment itself is counterintuitive. At present, the economic incentives to ignore the Kyoto Protocol have far outweighed the benefits. Saving the earth is the ideal goal, but between the economy and the environment, we have observed that most nations will consider financial stability a top priority.
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+International Fishing Industries+
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1. Information Office of the State Council Of the People's Republic of China, The Development of China's Marine Programs, May 1998, Beijing
2. Liu Yan, Qiu Jun, Problems and possible solutions of our country's marine reserves, National Oceanic Administration Institute of Marine Development Strategy
3. Xinhua General News Service, *China* opens *marine* life biodiversity pretection center, October 11, 2006
4. Guifang Xue, China And International Fisheries Law And Policy, 2005
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Ocean sanctuaries have been set up to protect whales from prosecution that they are not able to deal with, namely human hunting. The first was set up in the Antarctic Ocean in 1932. The Indian Ocean Sanctuary was set up in 1979. In 1994, the Southern Ocean Sanctuary was adopted by the IWC and will be reviewed every ten years. Proposals for a South Atlantic and South Pacific Sanctuaries have been submitted; the three-quarters majority vote has not been met for either region (IWC, 2007b).
+Works Cited+unmigrated-wiki-markup
International Fund for Animal Welfare. (2007). Iceland signals an end to its commercial whaling enterprise due to lack of consumer demand. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from \ [http:///www.ifaw.org/ifaw/general/default.aspx?oid=220372\].unmigrated-wiki-markup
International Whaling Commission. (2007). Commission Information. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from \ [http://www.iwcoffice.org/commission/iwcmain.htm\].Wiki Markup
International Whaling Commission. (2007). Whale Sanctuaries. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from \ [http://www.iwcoffice.org/conservation/sanctuaries.htm\].
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+Politics+
As the "Cod Wars" between Great Britain and Iceland during the 1950's to 1970's showed, fishing was a significant enough industry for them to challenge each other with naval forces. Iceland provoked the start of all three of these conflicts by extending their EEZ farther from their shores every time. Iceland felt that these measures were necessary because their economy depends so heavily on the fishing industry, due to a lack of agriculture and other natural resources. "Fish and fish products of one form or another...have on average accounted for 89.71 per cent of Iceland's total export in each year during the period 1881-1976" (TED). This dependence caused Iceland to take strong proactive steps to protect their fishery when it was determined that stocks were being over exploited, especially by foreign vessels from Great Britain, West Germany and Belgium. "The tonnage of fish catches had been decreasing since a peak in the 1950's, even though technological improvements allowed greater catches for fishing vessels" (TED) meaning that the overall population must have been decreasing. The start of the Third War was a result of pushing the EEZ to its current 200 mile range, as outlined in the then newly established Law of the Sea. While no actual battles were fought, sides were chosen by neighboring nations, and ships were damaged in collisions and net cutting missions.
International politics were affected by this event, with NATO being forced to mediate the conflict and the use of the UN created Law of the Sea as justification of Iceland's actions before it had been fully established as international law.
Works Cited
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