Comment by paulmd

Because of the laws of international waters etc it’s essentially impossible to police, short of aircraft/naval patrols being willing to fire on violators on sight. There is no legal basis to keep another nation from overfishing as long as it happens in international waters, and china largely just does what they want even in territorial waters. Unless you’re willing to start an international incident the best you can do is get one boat while the other 49 slip by with their haul.

We set up the laws of the sea basically on the same model as the United Nations. They’re there to keep the peace between international powers, not produce good governance.