The New Conversations Project (NCP) joined a winning proposal by the International Labor Organization to promote human rights through improved labor standards in the fishing industry in South America, where illegal fishing affects all countries with a coastline.

According to Jason Judd, New Conversations executive director, the project “will work at the intersection of illegal distant-water fishing and labor abuses. The work will focus on Peru and Ecuador, and the proposed Cornell ILR School role includes research to help policymakers in those countries and the U.S. come to grips with the impacts of illegal fishing on coastal fisheries and the migrant workers—many of them from Asia—working in distant-water fishing.” Peru’s industry and the project will also have to contend with the massive January 2022 oil spill that followed the Tonga tsunami.

ILR’s funding will be a sub-grant from the ILO, which was awarded $5 million for a four-year effort from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) in December 2021.



The full version of this story appears on the ILR website.

Julie Greco is a communications specialist with the ILR School.