(a) Identify and evaluate the reasons for deadlock in the WTO negotiations on fisheries between the developing and developed…

(a) Reasons for the WTO Fisheries Deadlock

The WTO fisheries impasse is best understood as a contest over how much power asymmetry the rules should absorb. Developed countries, especially those with large industrial fleets, pushed for discipline on subsidies that facilitate overcapacity and overfishing, arguing that public support distorts markets and depletes stocks. The North-South framing is complicated by China, the world's largest fisheries subsidiser, which claims developing-country status and hence S&DT - a key reason developed members resist open-ended flexibilities. Developing countries, led by India, accepted environmental objectives but insisted on Special and Differential Treatment (S&DT) under WTO rules, arguing that small-scale and artisanal fishers need livelihood protection, food security and capacity building. India’s position distinguished artisanal from industrial fishing, resisting one-size-fits-all subsidy bans that could criminalise subsistence fishing. The deadlock deepened because technical standards on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing assumed monitoring, reporting and verification capacities that many developing states lack. Developing countries feared that compliance costs would become disguised barriers, while developed countries worried that weak enforcement would undermine the agreement. The 2022 MC12 Fisheries Subsidies Agreement broke part of the logjam by banning subsidies for IUU fishing and for stocks already overfished, and for fishing on the unregulated high seas, developing countries got a two-year exemption from dispute settlement for IUU-related subsidies within their Exclusive Economic Zones. The agreement entered into force on 15 September 2025 after two-thirds of members accepted it, and it carries a sunset clause: it lapses if comprehensive disciplines are not adopted within four years unless members decide otherwise. Yet the broader deadlock persists: the second phase ("Fish 2") failed at MC13 in Abu Dhabi (2024), where India sought a 25-year transition for developing countries within their EEZs and demanded that distant-water fishing nations end subsidies beyond their EEZs, and MC14 in Yaoundé (March 2026) could only commit to continuing talks towards MC15. Comprehensive disciplines on overcapacity and the wider overfishing agenda, and the scope of S&DT, remain unresolved. Evaluated against the standard of equitable multilateralism, the outcome is partial: it addresses some harmful subsidies but leaves structural asymmetries intact, allowing powerful states to shape norms while weaker states remain exposed to compliance burdens.

(b) Realist Prescription for Survival

Realism prescribes survival through self-help in an anarchic system. Classical realism, associated with Morgenthau, defines national interest in terms of power and treats states as rational actors seeking to preserve and enhance their position. The core mechanism is balance of power: states resist any single hegemon by forming counterweights, whether through internal strengthening or external alliances. Neorealism, associated with Waltz, locates survival in structure rather than state character. The distribution of capabilities, especially bipolar versus multipolar configurations, shapes systemic stability, bipolarity is often seen as more stable because great-power intentions are clearer and miscalculation is lower. Under either version, alliances are not moral choices but survival strategies. Within neorealism, Waltz's defensive realism advises seeking an appropriate amount of power, since overexpansion provokes balancing, whereas Mearsheimer's offensive realism holds that survival is best assured by maximising relative power and ultimately seeking regional hegemony. Both warn of the security dilemma (John Herz): measures one state takes for its own security reduce the security of others. Morgenthau adds prudence as the supreme political virtue. The realist answer to anarchy is not institutional trust but credible deterrence, hedging, and the management of relative gains.

(c) Russia–Ukraine Crisis and EU Energy Needs

The Russian-Ukraine crisis exposed the EU’s structural dependence on Russian energy. Before 2022, Russia supplied about 40 per cent of the EU's imported gas, with Nord Stream 1 central to Germany's supply and the completed but never-operated Nord Stream 2 symbolising deepening dependence, both were damaged by sabotage in September 2022. European gas prices spiked to record levels in August 2022. Germany’s Energiewende had reduced coal and nuclear dependence, but nuclear exit was not complete before the crisis, three reactors remained operational until April 2023, and their lifespans were extended in response to the energy shock. The war turned energy into a geopolitical instrument, revealing that diversification without strategic autonomy is fragile. The EU responded through REPowerEU, accelerating renewable transition, energy efficiency and LNG diversification, notably from Qatar and the United States. Solidarity mechanisms included a coordinated 15 per cent voluntary gas-demand reduction (2022), mandatory storage-filling targets, joint gas purchasing through AggregateEU, and a market correction mechanism (price cap), while the Temporary Crisis (and later Crisis and Transition) Framework relaxed state-aid rules so governments could cushion households and industry. Russia's share of EU gas imports fell sharply, transit through Ukraine ended on 1 January 2025, and the EU has since legislated a phase-out of Russian gas imports by 2027, though Russian LNG imports had initially risen. Yet the response also shows realist logic: states and blocs prioritise security of supply, strategic leverage and relative resilience over pure market integration. The shadow was real in 2022–23, but the crisis also accelerated diversification and renewables, so its long-run effect has been to reduce rather than deepen dependence.