Blue Justice
Date: 07/12/2020 | Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries
The Blue Justice initiative will assist developing countries in combating crime in the fisheries sector. It is about promoting cooperation towards a fair and sustainable blue economy without fisheries crime.
International Declaration against Fisheries Crime (Copenhagen Declaration)
The declaration states that the world must recognize that organized crime threatens the global fishing industry and includes both illegal fishing, economic crime and human trafficking. The declaration also supports inter-agency cooperation both nationally and internationally as an important element in this work. The declaration was adopted in UNCity (the UN complex) in Copenhagen in 2018 by 9 countries following Norwegian initiative. Today, the declaration has 60 member states (ie 37% of the world's maritime states).
About the Blue Justice initiative
The initiative was launched by Norway during Our Ocean in Oslo in 2019 to primarily support developing countries in the implementation of the Copenhagen Declaration. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) is an important contributor to the initiative. The cooperation is done, among other things, through an international vessel tracking center established in Vardø in 2021 and by using the digital cooperation platform Blue Justice Community for secure state-to-state cooperation against fisheries crime. The Blue Justice initiative's tracking center is co-located with the joint analysis unit between the Directorate of Fisheries and the Coastal Administration at Vardø traffic centre.
In 2024, a new Norwegian ocean monitoring program was launched under the Blue Justice initiative, which gives developing countries access to Norwegian satellite data.
More information at: www.bluejustice.org