The Marine Stewardship Council and Developing Countries - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 290

of the early discussion can be found in various issues of SAMUDRA Report, a
publication of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF), and
are summarised in Constance & Bonanno (2000). In short, ICSF and other critical
stakeholders questioned the MSC initiative on the basis of:
the motivations of Unilever in starting it;
the centralised and corporate structure of MSC;
a bias in favour of industrial fisheries and developed country fisheries in partic-
ular;
the lack of consultation with fishers in general and developing country repre-
sentatives in particular;
the perception in developing countries that ecolabels constitute technical barriers
to trade;
the financial and human resource costs that achieving certification would entail
in developing countries and especially small-scale fisheries; and
the recognition that the current state of scientific knowledge is no guarantee of
sustainability.
(SAMUDRA Report issues of July 1996, November 1996, January 1998, December
1998, April 1999, December 2000 and December 2001.)
MSC and other supporters of the initiative responded to these criticisms, also in
SAMUDRA Report (issues of July 1996, November 1996, July 1997, January 1998
and August 2001), assuring that workshops and consultations were being carried
out around the world. MSC also argued that their certification system was being
field-tested in various settings, including small-scale fisheries and fisheries in the
developing world. The MSC assured fishers that because the scheme was voluntary,
it would not be imposed on anyone, and that it would be market neutral and non-
discriminatory. Finally, the MSC claimed that their standard was not going to work
against the interests of small-scale fishers because it would promote, among other
things, socially responsible fishing.
The MSC revised its governance structure in 2000 to create two new groups re-
porting to the board of trustees - its executive decision-making body (then includ-
ing developing country members and a fishery economist) - the technical advisory
board and the stakeholder council. The technical advisory board provides advice
on technical, scientific and quasi-judicial issues to the board of trustees (Cummins
2004). It comprises 13 members, mostly fishery and ecological scientists, experts on
chain of custody and processing, but only two natural resource/fishery economists
and no other social scientist. The stakeholder council represents specific interests,
grouped under eight categories represented by 28 individuals. Among these, there
is a 'developing nation group' represented by three academics (from Brazil, Mexico
and Nigeria) and a 'catch-sector interest group' with a representative from South
Africa occupying one of the seven seats.
Even though MSC has been fashioned after the Forest Stewardship Council
(FSC) (established in 1993, also with input from WWF and other conservation