FRENCH TUNA NETS ARE ILLEGAL UNDER EU DRIFT NET LAWS, SAYS ECJ
March 1st, 2009
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that the use of drift nets by French fishing boats to catch bluefin tuna breaks existing EU wildlife conservation laws. France had disputed European Commission claims its small-scale fishing vessels broke this law because they were a maximum of 10km long compared to the drift nets banned by a 2002 EU regulation, which were often 100s of kilometres long. The court threw out France's case saying its authorities had failed to effectively inspect these smaller drift nets and had been too lax in ...
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