The Shrimp Industry of Bangladesh: A Study of Business Regulation, Market Practices, and Human Rights in a Constitutional Framework

The shrimp industry occupies a distinctive place in Bangladesh's economic and legal landscape. Long celebrated as “white gold,” the sector has historically been the country's second-largest export earner after ready-made garments, and it continues to sustain the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of coastal households across Khulna, Satkhira, Bagerhat, and Cox's Bazar. This paper undertakes a comprehensive, business-law-oriented examination of the shrimp industry, tracing its historical evolution from subsistence gher farming to an internationally regulated export sector. It analyses the domestic legal architecture that governs the industry — including the National Fisheries Policy 1998, the Fish and Fish Products (Inspection and Quality Control) Ordinance 1983, the Bangladesh Food Safety Act 2013, the Environment Conservation Act 1995, and the Bangladesh Labour Act 2006 — alongside the international regulatory regime imposed by the European Union, the United States, and the World Trade Organization. The paper further evaluates market practices, supply-chain structures, and the persistent legal and human rights challenges that have constrained the sector's growth, including environmental degradation, child labour, and the exploitation of women in processing plants. Finally, it situates Bangladesh's experience within a comparative regional context and proposes a forward-looking legal and policy agenda for the period 2026–2033. The analysis demonstrates that while business law has played an indispensable role in enabling Bangladesh's shrimp export success, weak enforcement, institutional fragmentation, and unresolved labour and environmental concerns continue to threaten the industry's long-term sustainability and its compliance with constitutional guarantees of equality, dignity, and a healthy environment.