Components and Challenges of Port State Jurisdiction in Fight Against Illegal Fishing of Foreign Ship and its Compliance with the Law on Protection and Exploitation of Aquatic Resources of the Islamic Republic of Iran

The port state jurisdiction in preventing the unloading of illegal fishing in the port by foreign ship is the result of years of inefficiency of the exercise of the competence of coastal state and the flag state in accordance with the provisions of the Convention on the Law of the Sea. However, the port state jurisdiction’s components in fight against illegal fishing for foreign vessel faces challenges that its study is one of the objectives and goal of this article. The research method is descriptive-analytical and based on the provisions of the Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Food and Agriculture Organization’s documents related to the port state jurisdiction and the fight against illegal fishing. The main question of the research is what are the components and challenges of the port state’s jurisdiction in fighting illegal fishing of foreign ship and preventing the unloading of caught products? The research findings show that the components of port state’s jurisdiction depend on membership in the Food and Agriculture Organization’s international documents and compliance with its criteria in domestic law. This situation is a combination of international and domestic requirements related to the port state and its measures to combat illegal fishing of foreign ship and preventing the unloading of caught products, some of these requirements have been complied with in the Law on Protection and Exploitation of Aquatic Resources of the Islamic Republic of Iran. But in some cases, the coastal state and the flag state are in conflict with each other, which requires tripartite cooperation of the port, coastal and flag states in different maritime areas under their special jurisdiction and supervision of the Regional Fisheries Management Organization.