Citing concerns for endangered vaquita, Court declines to lift ban on import of some seafood

Nossaman LLP
Contact

On October 22, 2018, the U.S. Court of International Trade denied the request of various federal agencies to stay an injunction banning the import of Mexican seafood caught with gill nets in the Gulf of California.  The injunction, granted in July, is intended to protect the endangered vaquita porpoise, which can get tangled in commercial fishing gill nets.  The injunction required the U.S. government, pursuant to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, to ban the importation of commercial fish and fish products caught with technology that results in incidental killing or injury of ocean mammals in excess of United States standards.  More specifically, the ban prohibits import of fish and fish products from Mexican commercial fisheries using gill nets in the vaquita’s range in the Upper Gulf of California.  It is believed that very few vaquita remain in the wild.  In requesting the stay, the U.S. government alleged that is had suffered “ongoing serious harm” as a result of the injunction.  The court, however, concluded that the government had not met its burden for a stay.

DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

© Nossaman LLP | Attorney Advertising

Written by:

Nossaman LLP
Contact
more
less

Nossaman LLP on:

Reporters on Deadline

"My best business intelligence, in one easy email…"

Your first step to building a free, personalized, morning email brief covering pertinent authors and topics on JD Supra:
*By using the service, you signify your acceptance of JD Supra's Privacy Policy.
Custom Email Digest
- hide
- hide