The freedom of the high seas is probably the most well known aspect of the international law of the sea and the freedom of fishing is, along with the freedom of navigation, its most well known component. This book powerfully challenges many of the assumptions which are commonly held regarding the freedom to fish on the high seas and analyses recent developments to demonstrate the extent to which the exercise of this freedom has become subject to constraint. Indeed, the masterly opening chapter surveys the development of international law relating to high seas fishing and seeks to demonstrate that from the very beginning—in the writings of Grotius—it was understood that there might be some limitation upon it since it concerned a finite resource. In essence, this requires recognition of the need to ensure conservation of fish stocks in the interests of all States. It was the failure to make progress on conservation in the 1950s and 1960s which encouraged the trend towards enlarging zones of national jurisdiction.

The author then considers the impact of the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC). Clearly, the advent of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) permitted the transformation of large swathes of what had previously been high seas into areas under national jurisdiction and an outline of the