Target 14.6: Prohibit harmful fisheries subsidies
By 2020, prohibit certain forms of fisheries subsidies which contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, eliminate subsidies that contribute to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and refrain from introducing new such subsidies, recognizing that appropriate and effective special and differential treatment for developing and least developed countries should be an integral part of the World Trade Organization fisheries subsidies negotiation
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
Harmful fisheries subsidies, about $22 billion a year, go primarily to industrial fleets. The WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies entered into force on 15 September 2025, but implementation depends on governments resisting fleet-owner pressure. Subsidies are government payments, so corporate conduct is not the input; fleet-owner lobbying to retain them is the main obstacle that share owners can remove. InfluenceMap documents seafood companies and associations lobbying against ocean-protection policy, among them Pacific Seafood, Cooke, Europeche and the National Fisheries Institute. That record indicates the industry's political influence is a live obstacle. The evidence on subsidy-specific lobbying is indirect, though, since InfluenceMap covers ocean-protection policy generally. Owners of seafood and fishing-fleet shares can press companies to disclose and end lobbying for subsidies. Owners remove a necessary obstacle and governments must also act.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
No shareholder advocacy found yet
We looked and found nothing that met our standard, which is a source we opened and confirmed. No shareholder proposal or investor engagement located that asks seafood or fishing-fleet companies to disclose or end lobbying for fisheries subsidies. Investor statements on this topic that the researcher is aware of were addressed to WTO negotiators, which is government lobbying and falls outside this record. Web search was unavailable for this batch.
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.