Who actually sets the rules for tuna fisheries across oceans?

Tuna move farther than one jurisdiction

Many commercial tuna stocks move through waters governed by different states and, in some cases, the high seas. That makes management a shared problem: a rule applied in one national zone cannot by itself govern the same stock throughout its range.

FAO’s Common Oceans tuna programme therefore works with five tuna regional fisheries management organisations, or tRFMOs. They provide the main international forums through which participating governments cooperate on major tuna and tuna-like fisheries in different ocean areas.

Five regional bodies divide the ocean rather than one body ruling the world

The five organisations are the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT), Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), and Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC). Their mandates are not interchangeable: each has its own convention area, membership, species or stock responsibilities and decision process.

IOTC describes itself as the intergovernmental organisation responsible for managing tuna and tuna-like species in the Indian Ocean. WCPFC describes the Commission’s annual meeting as its ultimate decision-making body and says the Commission adopts Conservation and Management Measures. ICCAT likewise brings contracting parties together to agree conservation and management measures for Atlantic tunas and tuna-like species.

• Indian Ocean: check IOTC measures and the relevant coastal or flag-state rules
• Western and central Pacific: check WCPFC measures and applicable national rules
• Atlantic: check ICCAT measures and the law implementing them
• Do not transfer a rule from one ocean or stock to another without checking scope

A regional measure still has to meet vessels, ports and national law

Regional commissions agree measures through their members, but fishing happens through vessels licensed, flagged, landing or transshipping under particular legal systems. That is why a vessel can face several layers of obligation at once: the RFMO measure, a coastal state’s fishing conditions, its flag state’s controls and the requirements of a port where catch is landed or transshipped.

For a buyer or reader, this means a broad statement such as ‘RFMO managed’ is incomplete. The useful evidence identifies the stock or species, fishing area, relevant commission, vessel or fleet context where available, and the current rule or implementation source.

Use the rulebook as a verification path, not as a quality badge

An RFMO’s existence does not automatically prove that every tuna product is sustainable, legal or fully traceable. A management measure can establish catch limits, effort controls, monitoring duties or other requirements, but product-level confidence still depends on whether the specific fishery and actors comply with the applicable rules and whether the claim can be traced to reliable evidence.

A practical check starts with geography: identify the ocean and fishing area, then the species or stock, then the relevant tRFMO and current measure. After that, check the national authority or other first-party source that applies the measure to the vessel, landing or product in question.