[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 41, Number 20 (Monday, May 23, 2005)]
[Pages 816-817]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Message to the Senate Transmitting the Convention on the Conservation 
and Management of the Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and 
Central Pacific Ocean, With Annexes

May 16, 2005

To the Senate of the United States:

    With a view to receiving the advice and consent of the Senate to 
ratification, I transmit herewith the Convention on the Conservation and 
Management of the Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and 
Central Pacific Ocean, with Annexes (the ``WCPF Convention''), which was 
adopted at Honolulu on September 5, 2000, by the Multilateral High Level 
Conference on the Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and 
Central Pacific Ocean. The United States signed the Convention on that 
date. I also transmit, for the information of the Senate, the report of 
the Secretary of State with respect to the WCPF Convention.

    The WCPF Convention sets forth legal obligations and establishes 
cooperative mechanisms that are needed in order to ensure the long-term 
conservation and sustainable use of highly migratory fish stocks (such 
as tuna, swordfish, and marlin) that range across extensive areas of the 
high seas as well as through waters under the fisheries jurisdiction of 
numerous coastal States. These constitute resources of worldwide 
importance, with the fisheries for tuna in the Western and Central 
Pacific being the largest and most valuable in the world. Implementation 
of the WCPF Convention will offer the opportunity to conserve and manage 
these resources responsibly before they become subject to the pressures 
of overfishing and over-capacity that are so evident elsewhere in the 
world's oceans.

    The WCPF Convention builds upon the 1982 United Nations Convention 
on the Law of the Sea and the 1995 United Nations Agreement on the 
Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly 
Migratory Fish Stocks. The WCPF Convention gives effect to the 
provisions of these two instruments, which recognize cooperation to 
conserve highly migratory fish stocks as essential, and require those 
with direct interests in them--coastal States with authority to manage 
fishing in waters under their jurisdiction and nations whose vessels 
fish for these stocks--to engage in such cooperation through regional 
fishery management organizations.

    The WCPF Convention balances in an equitable fashion the interests 
of coastal States, notably the island States that comprise the Forum 
Fisheries Agency (FFA), in protecting important fishery resources off 
their shores, and the interests of distant water fishing States, notably 
Asian fishing nations and entities (Japan, Republic of Korea, China, and 
Taiwan), whose fishing vessels range far from their own shores.

    The United States, which played an instrumental role in achieving 
this balance, has direct and important interests in the WCPF Convention 
and its early and effective implementation. The United States is both a 
major distant water fishing nation (with the fourth-largest catch in the 
region) and an important coastal State with significant Exclusive 
Economic Zone waters in the region (including the waters around Hawaii, 
American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands).

    United States fishing concerns, including the U.S. tuna industry, 
U.S. conservation organizations, and U.S. consumers, as well as those 
residents of Hawaii and the U.S. Flag Pacific island areas of Guam, 
American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands, all have a crucial 
stake in the health of the oceans and their resources as promoted by the 
WCPF Convention.

    I recommend that the Senate give early and favorable consideration 
to the WCPF

[[Page 817]]

Convention and give its advice and consent to its ratification.
                                                George W. Bush
 The White House,
 May 16, 2005.