India to Join Southern Indian Ocean Fisheries Agreement as Full Member

The high seas (meaning: ocean areas beyond any country's Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ) make up about 65% of the world's oceans. These waters fall outside any single nation's jurisdiction. Because no one country owns these waters, fishing there is managed through Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs). These are treaty bodies that set rules on catch limits, species protection, and inspection. UNCLOS (the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea) is the legal foundation for this system. UNCLOS Article 77(4) excludes sedentary species under coastal state jurisdiction from high seas RFMOs. This means creatures that live fixed to the seabed within a country's own continental shelf remain under that country's control, not an RFMO's.

In the Indian Ocean, two RFMOs matter most for India. The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) manages highly migratory tuna and tuna-like species. India has been a full Contracting Party to the IOTC since 1996. The second is the Southern Indian Ocean Fisheries Agreement (SIOFA). This covers fish, molluscs, crustaceans and other species that do not migrate widely. SIOFA regulates non-tuna, non-migratory fish stocks in the southern Indian Ocean high seas. This includes squid, toothfish and alfonsino. India has so far only held the limited status of Cooperating Non-Contracting Party (CNCP) of SIOFA since 2022. This status allowed some fishing access but little say in decisions.

High seas fishing today is dominated by a handful of countries. China holds about 21% of this activity. Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Spain follow. India's fishing fleet has largely stayed within 60-80 nautical miles of its own EEZ. This is far short of its potential reach into distant high seas waters.