The Pew Report on US fishery councils: a critique from the Open Society

The Pew Charitable Trusts have recently supported a study of the regional fishery management councils responsible for managing US coastal fish stocks. The four key findings of this report may be thought of as an attempt to answer two fundamental concerns: (i) Who should make the management decisions?, and (ii) Who should take responsibility for making these decisions? This paper provides a rational reply to these concerns by negatively reforming the questions, as: (i) How do we ensure that a decision-making is not based on irrational arguments, and (ii) How do we ensure that normative goals (maximum sustainable yields, optimum yields) are not viewed as objective scientific predictions.