A/HRC/40/56 5. Extraterritorial obligations of States 66. It is a principal duty of States to regulate, monitor and investigate the activities of their domiciled corporations under national law or through intergovernmental instruments and voluntary codes of conduct, such as the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The Special Rapporteur has addressed the particular challenges of holding transnational corporations accountable for human rights violations in global supply chains where jurisdictional lines are often blurred (A/73/164, para. 76). 67. In the 2017 United States case, Ratha v. Phatthana Seafood, for example, a federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit brought by seven Cambodian labourers seeking compensation for exploitation while forced to work in two shrimp processing plants of major suppliers to large United States retailers. 71 The judge determined that, even if the plaintiffs could demonstrate that they were held in slavery and that products manufactured as a result of their forced labour were sold to the United States, the United States held no jurisdiction over its extraterritorial suppliers. 68. Given that maritime boundaries are unclear and imprecise, it is difficult to implement extraterritorial responsibility in the fishing industry. It is even more complicated in the context of marine fisheries or in waters of multiple jurisdiction, where flag States, or the State under which the vessel is registered, maintain primary responsibility to implement international obligations, regardless of where the vessel is operating. On the high seas, this regulation may be supplemented by relevant international agreements that allocate regulatory authority among States to prevent, deter and eliminate illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing. Similarly, if a vessel is in the waters or at the port of another State, that coastal or port State also has certain rights and responsibilities. 69. According to ILO, some fishing companies register vessels in open international registers to avoid law enforcement measures or purposefully to register vessels in flag States that are unable or unwilling to exercise jurisdiction. 72 Collaborative regulation among States can help crack down on such evasive practices. The Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing, for example, is the first binding international agreement to specifically target illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing activities with which human rights abuses are often intertwined. 70. States have also initiated a global dialogue with academics, fishery experts and international agencies to address extraterritorial obligations towards fishery workers. The first international fisheries crime symposium, FishCRIME, was held in 2015. The fourth annual symposium was held in October 2018, and resulted in the adoption of a non-binding Ministers’ Declaration on Transnational Organised Crime in the Global Fishing Industry by nine States from four continents. B. Role of the private sector 71. Private actors along the supply chain must take proactive measures to eliminate exploitative working conditions and to implement protections consistent with international law. Instituting fair recruitment practices that prohibit the use of brokers or agents may reduce the risk of human trafficking and forced labour. Seafood suppliers and major retailers may also adopt risk assessment tools that screen for high-risk zones of forced labour and reveal potential abuses within their supply chains. Third-party audits, for example, have the potential to increase transparency and hold companies accountable to the public, but it remains up to the private actors who commission the audits whether to publicly release the findings of the studies and, of course, how to address violations. 72. Privately funded initiatives and partnerships with States that are designed to track illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing have the potential to further identify violations of fishery workers’ rights at sea. Global Fishing Watch, Project Eyes on the Seas, and 71 72 Southern Shrimp Alliance, “Cambodia”. Available at www.shrimpalliance.com/tag/cambodia/. ILO, Fishers first: Good practices to end labour exploitation at sea (Geneva, 2016), p. 13. 15