Our Common Sea : Global Environmental Governance and The Marine Stewardship Council Story

Fish. Why do fish matter? Fish are the main source of protein for three billion people on Earth (World Wildlife Fund, 2019), that is roughly 39 percent of the global population (United Nations, 2019, p. 11). Food, in particular, is essential to politics, as it literally fuels the brainpower of mankind. There is power in sustaining this essential resource for generations to come, it is a crucial aspect of the future of food. Power through Sustainability. Focusing on institutions and fishery politics, this research will try to uncover whether or not the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), a non-state market-driven (NSMD) organization, holds power in global environmental governance by creating an effective international sustainable fishing regime. The theories and frameworks utilized stretch across multiple disciplines, such as international relations, sociology, international political theory, economics, ecology, fisheries science, and environmental sciences. To better understand the Marine Stewardship Council this study will focus on the global political economy (GPE) and global environmental governance (GEG), international relations green theory and neoliberal theory, and Elinor Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD), Social-Ecological Systems (SES), and beyond panacea frameworks. The research will try to discover if non-state market-driven governance systems, specifically the Marine Stewardship Council matter in international relations and global politics, employing achieving sustainable global environmental governance goals. Does the MSC influence civil society driven GEG by being an active, international sustainable fishing institution, or is the MSC merely the only feasible option for international fisheries governance