Source: High North News, No.11, Nov. 1996, published by the High North Alliance

    Clinton to Mexico:

    Lifting of US Tuna Trade Ban Top-Priority

    After a threat of a filibuster by members of his own party had prevented the expected revision of US Tuna/Dolphin legislation before the election, president Clinton now promises Mexico, which has the largest tuna purse seine fleet in the eastern Pacific, that the revision will be on the agenda of the new Congress within its first 30 days.

    The revised legislation will lift a US GATT-illegal embargo on the import of tuna from Latin American countries, including Mexico, and secure the implementation of an international agreement that will ensure that bycatches of dolphins in this tuna fishery are kept below 0.1 percent of the stocks. This agreement is outlined in the Panama-declaration signed by the US late last year, together with the other 11 countries involved in the extensive tuna fisheries in the eastern tropical Pacific.

    The active US involvement in initiating the declaration comes as a result of two rulings by the GATT panel deeming the US tuna embargo GATT-illegal. After the establishment of the WTO (The World Trade Organisation), effective punitive measures have been authorised for use against countries not respecting the GATT. Consequently, the US has been forced to change its policy and to abandon its unilateral approach to the issue of dolphin bycatches in the eastern tropical Pacific. Existing US legislation imposes a zero bycatch level for this fishery, in contrast with tuna fisheries in other areas. Initially, the Panama declaration permits an annual bycatch of up to 5,000 dolphins (0.05% of the abundance of the dolphins in the eastern Pacific fishery), but its objective is to balance reducing dolphin mortality with other objectives such as protecting the biomass of tuna, sharks, billfish and sea turtles.

    - deep disappointment -
    "I want to express my deep disappointment with the failure to enact legislation to implement the Panama declaration this year. Let me assure that passing such legislation is a top priority for my Administration and for me personally", wrote president Clinton to Mexican president, E. Z. P. de Leon, on October 7 this year.

    The proposed bill is supported by Greenpeace, WWF and the Center for Marine Conservation, but strongly opposed by a number of animal rights and marine mammal rights organisations who refer to it as "the dolphin-death bill". The House of Representatives passed the legislation by a large majority during the summer of 1996, but the Senate was unable to put the bill to a vote before Congress took its pre-election recess, due to a threat of a filibuster on the part of Senator Barbara Boxer.

    «It is important that the legislation be passed this session of Congress in order to ensure that the international agreement is not lost,» wrote vice-president Al Gore to members of the Senate on September 26. And his warning proved well-founded: At the end of October, Mexico, dissatisfied with the continuation of the US tuna embargo, declared that the country would suspend its participation in the La Jolla Agreement and would no longer feel bound by the, at present, voluntary regulations on dolphin mortality laid down in the Panama Declaration.

    - still optimistic -
    But Teresa Platt of the US Fishermens Coalition is still optimistic: "It is higly likely that the legislation will pass as it is supported by the tuna fishing interests in twelve countries, five major environmental groups, several unions, over a hundred resource and property rights groups, the Clinton administration, key Democrats and the Republican leadership in Congress. Additionally, the legislation has received newspaper endorsements from the New York Times, the Washington Times, the Washington Post, the San Diego Union and more", Platt says to the High North News.

    Background information:

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