Environmental Engineering Reference
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engaged in an ongoing assessment. Not surprisingly, the outcome - another revised
objections procedure published in March 2002 - also appeared to satisfy none of the
parties. On 12 March 2002, APA submitted a letter to the MSC formally objecting
to the revised policy and the retroactive application of that policy.
One substantive concern is that the objections process provides for an inappro-
priately low threshold for the decision to forward an objection against a certifier's
finding to an appeals panel. The MSC process specifies that a 'Further Objection'
is forwarded to an appeals panel unless the objection is either 'patently frivolous'
or 'spurious'. The result is that a certifier's determination that reflects the judgment
of an independent third-party team of experts, whose composition is determined,
in part, through consultations with the fishery client and other stakeholders, can be
set aside by a panel that is not involved in the intricacies of the assessment process,
is detached from the stakeholder consultation process, and does not have access
to the full range of data, information and evidence considered by the assessment
team.
An architect of the MSC programme and former MSC board member and member
of WWF US, Scott Burns, wrote in 2002 about the objections procedure: 'It is my
assumption that the MSC does not want to independently revisit every decision by
a certifier - but that it does want the power to correct decisions that are plainly
wrong' (pers.comm. from Scott Burns). Unfortunately, the MSC did not follow Mr
Burns' advice.
In the pollock case, NGO stakeholders filed a further objection to the certifica-
tion recommendation for both the BS/AI and GOA pollock fisheries. The BS/AI
objection was filed first. In a 25 September 2004 memorandum from APA to the
MSC, the client fishery argued that a further objection was not warranted because
the issues brought forward had been identified, discussed and responded at length
by the certification body throughout the 4-year duration of the assessment. While
a court of law might have found that the extremely low threshold for considering
an appeal had been met, a pragmatic MSC board determined otherwise, and the
MSC denied the further objection. However, the MSC did convene a panel to hear
an appeal on the much smaller GOA pollock fishery, suggesting that, as with the
subjective scoring of the assessment team discussed above, political compromise
in the MSC programme can be a path of less resistance.
Recently, at the continued urging of the US West Coast and Alaska fisheries, the
MSC has agreed to again revisit its objections procedure to consider the appropri-
ateness of the current standard and to determine if the process can be streamlined
to both reduce costs and shorten the overall certification process. APA is hopeful
that this new round of review will also provide a more consistent and defend-
able approach to the objections procedure, including not substituting the judge-
ment of the duly appointed independent experts with that of a less-well informed
panel, and a consistent application of the rules to fisheries already engaged in
assessments.
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