The Context of Fisheries Subsidies within the Trade Agenda – Developments to Date and the WTO 2017 Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires

Since the 1990s, discussions aiming to reduce and to eliminate certain harmful fisheries subsidies have been taking place at multilateral forums. If the trade distorting effects and the environmental threats of these subsidies are no longer questioned, clear rules on definitions and determination of these practices have not been set giving divergences of approaches and interests of member States of the multilateral trade system. With the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, within the scope of the United Nations, countries were firstly challenged with a clear target to prohibit and to eliminate types of harmful subsidies. This article covers the main developments on the thematic based on official and public documents since the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and tackle the major proposals tabled in anticipation to the Organization`s 11th Ministerial Conference, in Buenos Aires in 2017, and its progresses until beginning of 2019. It also concludes that lack of technical cooperation and convergent interest made impossible for the Conference to drawn conclusive line under any sort of definition