Institutional fragmentation in fisheries management: The case of the North Atlantic Ocean

Sammanfattning: When speaking in terms of institutional fragmentation in global environmental governance one might rather immediately notice that a certain degree of said fragmentation probably is a perennial characteristic in this context and, arguably, preferable. However, the degree varies rather widely in time, space and issue areas. Fisheries being an example of a relatively high degree of fragmentation, since fishery resources are found under national jurisdiction, in international waters or, as often is the case, in some kind of combination of the two, e.g. under regional agreements. This thesis will be a case study of the fisheries in the North Atlantic Ocean, being an example of both varying degrees of institutional fragmentation and several collapsed fish stocks. However, institutional fragmentation itself is arguably not a negative phenomenon, but rather the degrees of said fragmentation. It is therefore relevant to ask which parts of fragmentation and which levels of fragmentation could result in overall ineffectiveness of the fisheries management.