Establishing exclusive fishing zones

The widespread introduction in the mid-seventies of exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and the adoption in 1982, after long deliberations, of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea provided a new framework for the better management of marine resources. The new legal regime of the ocean gave coastal states rights and responsibilities for the management and use of fishery resources within their EEZs which embrace some 90 percent of the world's marine fisheries.