The Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976: State Regulation of Fishing Beyond the Territorial Sea

Historically, international law has recognized the sovereignty of coastal nations within the three-mile contiguous territorial sea. Although modem international practice has expanded the breadth of the territorial sea to twelve miles or more, the traditional three-mile zone retains a special significance within the scheme of domestic United States marine law. Under the federal scheme of marine resource jurisdiction, authority within the three-mile zone has been allocated to the coastal states while the federal government has exercised near-exclusive jurisdiction over marine zones seaward of the territorial sea boundary. However, this bifurcated jurisdiction scheme has failed to provide effective conservation and management of offshore marine resources, even when complemented by international fishery agreements and quotas. Technological innovations in the post-World War II era gave rise to intensified fishing efforts in the fertile United States coastal waters, resulting in depletion of at least ten major commercial fishery stocks. The economic significance of these depleted resources, combined with the plight of the domestic fishing industry, motivated Congress to pass the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 (FCMA). The FCMA purports to establish exclusive federal conservation and management authority over fisheries in the 197-mile zone extending seaward from the three-mile territorial sea boundary. Yet the FCMA also contains a provision which may prove to be an important flaw in the apparently exclusive federal authority over the FCZ. This concept of registration appears to have been a major concession to the states by Congress in order to encourage passage of the FCMAD Yet neither the statutory language nor the legislative history of the FCMA provides a clear definition of what are "registered vessels." This Comment attempts to clarify the potential scope of state authority in extraterritorial waters under the FCMA, paying particular attention to "registration."