Some basic information that you should be cognizant about on basic fishing boundaries -
<P>Basic introduction and definition of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_Economic_Zone">EEZs</a> (Exclusive Economic Zones) - basically this is the 200 mile law that you've been hearing over and over again in<i>Cod</i>.
<p><a href="http://www.un.org/Depts/los/index.htm">A big compilation of UN regulations and laws dealing with governing the ocean</a>. It may be of interest to skim the most integral document, the "Law of the Sea" that the UN drew up some time ago. The question of how much of this is being enforced by the UN is still pretty much up to international interpretation, I guess.
<p>It is interesting to note that disputes occurring in the ocean should be referred to <a href="http://www.itlos.org/">International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea</a>. I looked through the material in the website and other pertinent links on the website, and it seems that the ITLOS doesn't really have that much jurisdiction over anything. They seem to resolve petty issues that doesn't have that much impact on the world (like disputes over different countries holding ships in custody...etc.). They are currently examining a case on sustainable swordfish fishing in the SE Pacific Ocean, which had been ongoing since 2000, but the countries involved had repeatedly gotten orders to postpone the trial proceedings repeatedly, the most recent order pushing it to January 2008. More ineffective bureaucracy? I sure think so.
<P>Proceedings may also go to the <a href="http://www.icj-cij.org/">International Court of Justice</a> - but I don't think the ICJ would have enough judicial executive power to enforce their proceedings (that is, assuming that they even <b><i>care</b></i> about the issue of overfishing in the first place).
<p>I think one major handicap about these UN-affiliated programs is that major countries (like the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Russia, China...etc.) ignores their resolutions/orders/proceedings because they have enough power to ignore those resolutions. Who is going to boss the US, the UK, or China around? So what ends up happening is that only small countries (like St. Vincent and the Grenadines and other Caribbean nations, African nations, smaller Asian nations) comply with UN orders (sometimes under the coercion of bigger countries like the aforementioned countries). This is a problem because those bigger countries are usually the worse violators of the problems that the UN is trying to solve, so getting those smaller countries to comply is great, but it doesn't solve the problem at all.
<p>Unconvinced? Then ask yourself why the United States didn't sign the Kyoto Protocol.
<P>I guess this is part of why we can't strictly rely on organizations like the UN or organize another international body to govern the issue of dividing up the sea. The last thing we need is another ineffective bureaucracy that is really good at "advising," but ineffectual at "executing" and "implementing."