Canned Tuna

The dominant extraction method, sitting at around 66%, is purse seine fishing (Hamilton et al., 2011), wherein a large net is lowered into the water to target specific schools of fish. It is considered a generally efficient form of fishing with a low risk of catching unwanted species (Marine Stewardship Council, n.d.). Other methods include long-line and traditional pole fishing (Hamilton et al., 2011).

The supply chain for canned tuna is complex; it involves many individual harvesters with various national interests, as well as intermediary buyers and sellers in many nations across the globe. The process often begins out on the high seas, far from any port authority or regulatory body (FishWise, n.d.), but also involves some small-scale vessels operating within coastal waters (Hamilton et al., 2011). As a result of the often-remote nature of tuna fishing, many fishing vessels fish far from the location where their ship is officially domestically located. Furthermore, many fishing vessels may fly what is called a flag of convenience to be able to benefit from lax tax regulations or labour laws in a country in which they do not truly reside (Miller & Sumaila, 2014).

From the fishing vessels, the tuna can transition to the next stage at a port or through an at-sea transshipment (FishWise, n.d.), the use of which is controversial due to the lack of transparency regarding fish procurement which often hides or launders fish procured from an illegal or immoral source (Marto, 2019) (Talwar & Mulvaney, 2023). After unloading at a port, the fish are transported by mid-chain companies to a processing facility, where the fish are canned (FishWise, n.d.). Such processing facilities are located in over 40 countries across the globe and are seen in many as a primary method of economic advancement (Hamilton et al., 2011). After being canned in a processing facility, they are shipped to distributors across the world (FishWise, n.d.). In North America, they are sold in local supermarkets and shopping centres like Costco and Walmart (Talwar & Mulvaney, 2023).

Because of the extremely integrated global nature of the tuna supply chain, there is a great deal of concern and discussion surrounding the responsibilities of the various parties involved. Positively, environmental concerns about the degradation of many tuna species due to overfishing have been mitigated by recent information showing the recovery of various species once considered endangered (International Union for Conservation of Nature, 2021). This coincides with many positive changes in environmental regulations which many of the major retailers in North America began to implement (Talwar & Mulvaney, 2023), suggesting that distributors may have notable influence over changes in the supply chain. 

However, these positive changes have not yet been found to affect the nature and pervasiveness of human rights violations, which remain prevalent throughout the industry. Unfortunately, many sellers do not demand the same level of stringency when it comes to regulating human rights violations downstream (Talwar & Mulvaney, 2023). Such violations are as extreme as they are prevalent and include instances of human trafficking, rampant sexual abuse and violence, dangerous working conditions, and even allegations of injured workers being thrown overboard when unable to work (Bloom, 2023) (Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, 2019).

Most of the issues which exist within the tuna supply are caused by a dual issue of a lack of transparency and frequently deferred responsibility. The vast majority of distributors explicitly state their tuna supply chains have procedures to ensure human rights violations do not occur. Such statements allow companies to maintain goodwill with the public and avoid social sanctions. However, very few are willing or able to show proof that they are taking the required steps to ensure this is actually the case (Talwar & Mulvaney, 2023). The lack of transparency allows distributors to continue purchasing from canning companies which source their tuna from ships that employ slave labour or violate human rights while telling the public the opposite. As the company doesn’t take appropriate steps to ensure there are no human rights violations in their supply chain, they can claim a form of plausible deniability; in effect, the responsibility of ensuring human rights protections in the supply chain is deferred to the supplier (Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, 2019). As mentioned previously, many suppliers will purchase fish from transhipments which act to obscure the actual source of the fish.

To address these issues, one of the best available solutions is the use of the blockchain. The general purpose of the blockchain is to make the entire global supply chain visible to the supplier and other third parties. It creates digital tags at each step of the process which are logged to a specific name so that products can be traced back to the first person who harvested them (Tsai & Lin, 2023). The theory behind the idea is strong, in that anyone who wishes to audit a company’s supply chain will be able to see how each fish moved through the chain from the beginning. Unfortunately, it is massively hindered in practice by the “garbage in garbage out phenomenon” (Tsai & Lin, 2023, p. 153), which is the idea that transparency means nothing if the information input is false.

Their recommendation to fix this problem is to ensure independent auditors are present at each transfer of goods, verifying the information input into the blockchain. However, this solution presents a major problem which must be more effectively addressed to make it valid as a form of guaranteed transparency in the tuna fishing industry. More specifically, the use of independent auditors presents the same flaws which led to the collapse of Rena Plaza in Bangladesh. Social auditors were shown to fail to improve the safety and working conditions of those in the factories audited. This appears to be primarily because such private auditors are interested in gaining new corporate customers, so they prioritize looking like they are useful over producing accurate reports (Reinecke, 2017). The only way to address this would be to use governmental auditors or ones who are not profit-seeking. However, such an implementation would also require a great deal of coordination at a global level between countries to ensure that the auditors are adequately trained and uniformly reporting. Overall, while the option has great potential to improve the transparency of the industry, thus reducing the prevalence of human rights violations, it needs a great deal more research to find a strategy which adequately addresses its issues.

Bloom. (2023). Canned Brutality: Human rights abuses in the tuna industry. https://bloomassociation.orgwp-content/uploads/2023/05/Canned-brutality.pdf

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. (2019). Out of Sight: Modern Slavery in Pacific Supply Chains of Canned Tuna. https://media.business-humanrights.org/media/documents/files/Out_of_Sight_Modern_Slavery_in_Pacific_Supply_Chains_of_Canned_Tuna_4.pdf

FishWise (n.d.). Interactive Tuna Supply Chain. https://www.salttraceability.org/salt/tuna-supply-chain/

Hamilton, A., Lewis, A., McCoy, M. A., Havice, E., & Campling, L. (2011). Market and Industry Dynamics in the Global Tuna Supply Chain. Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Liam-Campling/publication/259442804_Market_and_Industry_Dynamics_in_the_Global_Tuna_Supply_Chain/links/0deec52b97ae86ec53000000/Market-and-Industry-Dynamics-in-the-Global-Tuna-Supply-Chain.pdf

Marine Stewardship Council. (n.d.). Purse seine. https://www.msc.org/what-we-are-doing/our-approach/fishing-methods-and-gear-types/purse-seine

Marto, C. F. (2019). Human Rights Violations Consequent to Transshipment Practices in Fisheries. Ocean & Coastal Law Journal, 24(1), 32–58.

Miller, D. D., & Sumaila, U. R. (2014). Flag use behavior and IUU activity within the international fishing fleet: Refining definitions and identifying areas of concern. Marine Policy, 44, 204–211. https://doi-org.ezproxy.tru.ca/10.1016/j.marpol.2013.08.027

Talwar, M., & Mulvaney, K. (2023). The High Cost of Cheap Tuna: US Supermarkets, Sustainability, and Human Rights at Sea (2^nd ed.). Greenpeace. https://prod.greenpeaceusa.info/usa/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Tuna-Retailer-Report__2nd-Edition.pdf

Tsai, C. -H., & Lin, C.-F. (2023). Shedding New Light on Multinational Corporations and Human Rights: Promises and Limits of “Blockchainizing” the Global Supply Chain. Michigan Journal of International Law, 44(1), 117–156.

International Union for Conservation of Nature. (2021, September 4). Tuna species recovering despite growing pressures on marine life – IUCN Red List. https://www.iucn.org/news/species/202109/tuna-species-recovering-despite-growing-pressures-marine-life-iucn-red-list#:~:text=The%20Atlantic%20bluefin%20tuna%20(Thunnus,Near%20Threatened%20to%20Least%20Concern.

Reinecke, J. (2017). How can we prevent another Rana Plaza? Professor Juliane Reinecke [Interview]. Rocking Our Priors. https://soundcloud.com/user-845572280/how-can-we-prevent-another-rana-plaza-professor-juliane-reinecke