A/HRC/40/56 workers, particularly those on board vessels. New Zealand, for example, introduced legislation requiring foreign vessels to adopt the New Zealand flag when operating within its waters, thus extending full and exclusive State jurisdiction over a vessel’s safety and employment practices. 67 The United Kingdom passed the Modern Slavery Act 2015, enabling law enforcement officers to board vessels and order them back to port on suspicion of modern slavery or human trafficking. 68 3. Other relevant international treaties 61. Protections for fishery workers may also be derived from commitments in multilateral and bilateral treaties. Unfortunately, States parties do not always take advantage of relevant provisions, as is the case for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Convention requires States to control the social matters of their registered vessels (art. 94 (1)), provides for States to prevent and punish the transport of slaves in ships flying their flag (art. 99) and grants a right of visit to any high-seas vessel that a State suspects is involved in the slave trade (art. 110 (1)). States hardly ever use that instrument to combat contemporary forms of slavery in commercial fisheries. 4. Monitoring compliance and administration of remedies 62. States are responsible for protecting the rights afforded to fishery workers and administering appropriate remedies for violations consistent with international law. Yet, despite known human rights and labour rights violations throughout the sector, few workers receive redress. Human rights case law involving fishery workers is quite limited, and often concerns access rights of indigenous peoples in developed countries. 63. In part, that is because most States have weak inspection regimes and fail to seriously investigate allegations of abuse. In a 2015 report, for example, the Government of Thailand noted that inspections of 474,334 fishery workers failed to identify a single case of forced labour – a surprising result, given the well-publicized exploitation within the industry. 69 As of 2016, the United States Department of Justice had not conducted any criminal prosecutions relating to human trafficking in United States-bound fishery supply chains, despite having legal authority to do so.70 64. The failure of States to effectively monitor and investigate potential abuses is significant, as most fishery workers face major barriers to accessing justice. Even workers who are aware of the available protections may lack the opportunity to seek a remedy due to their informal working arrangements or migrant status. In the case of migrant workers, vessel owners and operators may escape liability by hiding behind unregulated recruitment agencies that engage in fraudulent or illegal practices, further depriving workers of legal recourse against either party. Workers with the opportunity and means to report abuse may remain silent to avoid losing employment or spending time on lengthy complaint procedures that result in minimal sentences for abusers. 65. Opportunities to report abuses are rare for fishery workers who experience human rights and labour rights violations while at sea. Recognizing that it is difficult to monitor or control commercial fishing vessels on open waters, some States have turned to vessel monitoring and global positioning systems. Such systems better enable States to track vessels and identify signs of human trafficking and forced labour on board. Unfortunately, not all States have the capacity to invest in monitoring technology and not all vessels employ such devices. 67 68 69 70 14 FishCRIME, “ILO report on labour exploitation in the fishing sector”, 25 November 2016. Ibid. Thailand, Trafficking in Persons Report 2015: The Royal Thai Government’s Response, January 1 December 31, 2015 (Bangkok, 2016), p. 75. Trevor Sutton and Avery Siciliano, “Seafood slavery: human trafficking in the international fishing industry”, 2016.