Explore our latest reports to gain insights into our current work with clients and collaborators. These documents highlight our past projects.
Questions? Contact eva@naturaljustice.nl.
Papua New Guinea’s Fishing Practices alignment with the Charter for Fisheries Transparency (2025-2026)
Project: Conducted a fisheries transparency evaluation for the Fishing Industry Association (FIA) in Papua New Guinea, assessing member practices against the Coalition for Fisheries Transparency (CFT) Charter. The project combined legal analysis with a structured review of publicly available data and industry disclosures across key transparency areas.
Deliverables: Produced a public report mapping FIA PNG’s alignment with international transparency standards, including vessel identification, beneficial ownership, vessel tracking, and traceability. The report also provided targeted, practical recommendations to address identified legal and policy gaps.
Impact for client: Enabled FIA PNG and its stakeholders to better understand how existing legislation and practices align with global transparency expectations. Supported more informed engagement with regulators, partners, and certification initiatives to strengthen transparency in a pragmatic and context-specific manner.
Report available here (via ISEAL Evidencia)
Vessel Tracking & Personal Data Protection (2024-2025)
Project: two comparative legal research projects for Global Fishing Watch (GFW) on the intersection of fisheries legislation and data protection in relation to Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) data and its integration into AI-enabled vessel mapping tools. Conducted jurisdictional analyses across Brazil, the European Union, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Deliverables: The first study delivered a legal risk assessment and proposed regulatory pathways to enable lawful data sharing. One-pagers and a presentation was added to provide efficient training materials for the GFW team. The second developed procedural safeguards and draft policy provisions to support structured government data access.
Impact for client: Strengthened the policy team’s legal understanding tailored to their efforts to promote increased transparency in vessel tracking through VMS data publication. Through a live training and bespoke deliverables, the team had practical guidance to navigate discussions with government representatives and to more effectively anticipate and address potential legal barriers within their theory of change.
Aquatic Animal Welfare Report (December 2024)
Project: Set up independent framework on animal health and welfare in aquaculture (shrimp, tilapia, and Atlantic salmon) and compare this to the current state of legislation, policy, and private assurance mechanisms like certification. Commissioned by Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative (GSSI) and The Centre for Responsible Seafood (TCRS).
Deliverable: Report providing an overview of applicable legislation, policies, and private governance mechanisms, including certification schemes and audit frameworks.
Impact for client: Supported client’s understanding of the existing landscape of animal welfare considerations and identifying opportunities to engage with certification bodies to pragmatically raise standards for animal health and welfare.
Report available here (via GSSI website).
MarinTrust Impact Evaluation (February 2024)
Can certification or improvement efforts contribute to sustainability of marine ingredients? According to the majority of factories engaged with MarinTrust: it certainly can!
In 2023, Natural Justice was commissioned by MarinTrust to conduct an Impact Evaluation on the MarinTrust Standard and Improver Programme to uncover the true impact of its activities. Our evaluation investigated the hypothesis:
“MarinTrust activities lead to improved or protected environmental parameters.”
We set out to evaluate this hypothesis by diving into surveys and interviews with three key groups: MarinTrust certified factories (Group 1), participants in the Improver Programme (Group 2), and factories not engaged with MarinTrust (Group 3). Factory representatives shared insights on improvements, motivations, and the hurdles they faced. We also uncovered two critical supporting sources. First, we compared national legal requirements with MarinTrust standards to see where MarinTrust truly made a difference or if the impact was primarily made through compliance with legal requirements. Second, we explored market demands, especially from pet food and aquaculture feed producers, to understand if customer demand was driving participation or if there were deeper, intrinsic motivations.
Got curious? Visit this MarinTrust webpage or click on the report links to see our findings!
Impact Evaluation Report (English)
Summary Report (English) (Thai) (Vietnamese) (Spanish) (French)
Examples of past legal research & recommendations (2017-2019)
Fisheries Agreements between the European Union and West African States: its impact on food security and compliance with European and International law. Legal research at University of Amsterdam (2017)
Legal assessment of environmental laws impacting fish farming in EU, Madagascar, Kenya, Vietnam –Seafood Rating Programme “VISwijzer” (2018-2019)
Legal assessment of labour laws in fisheries in Spain – Good Fish Foundation (2019)
Article on the Council of Justice of the European Union on the Western Sahara (Case C-104/16 P) – Oxford Public International Law (2020)