ICCAT, supported by a number of different governments, was put in place to manage tuna fishing throughout the Atlantic. The listings of legal and illegal boats were made public; so it was easy enough to figure out who they bad guys were.

Back in 1999, there were 354 ships on the black list. In 2004, there were just ten. What happened to the other 344 dodgy ones? It's hard to tell... On paper it would seem that the management regime has worked - a landslide victory over the evils of pirate fishing. So why is it still taking place?

In the past, progressive countries - such as South Africa, who are members of ICCAT, banned blacklisted vessels from landing tuna in their ports. They also stopped tuna from being transferred onto ships flying member nation's flags, and were supposed to refuse entry to tuna coming from known offenders.

The net effect was that some non-ICCAT member states began to comply. However, those determined to continue to illegal fishing found big loopholes in the regulations. The quickest and easiest way to dodge the ban was to join the club - become a member of ICCAT. Countries, previously on the black list, now literally had a licence to fish in the Atlantic tuna grounds.

There are now 3,400 vessels on ICCAT's white list. Does this mean that the problem of pirate fishing has been solved in the Atlantic Ocean? Or that ICCAT's efforts against these pirates are weakening? Sadly, it looks like the latter.

A clear example of how vessels continue to flout the rules comes courtesy of the Japanese government. In 2004 fisheries officials inspecting two refrigerated cargo vessels, or reefers, in Shimizu, Japan, found them to be illegally carrying tuna from the Atlantic. The reefers "Lung Yuin" and the "Suruga No1" had been loaded up with catch from fifty different boats, from Taiwan and Vanuatu. All fifty had falsified documents claiming the tuna had been caught elsewhere. On the basis of the Japanese government's investigations, as much as 18,000 tonnes - more than 20%, of the bigeye tuna caught in the Atlantic - was done so by pirates, then smuggled onto reefers and laundered through legitimate markets.

None of the fifty boats cited was on ICCAT black list.

Apart from some vessels that were actually scrapped, the pirate vessels no longer on the black list haven't gone away. They keep reappearing under another name, with a different flag or owner. They move from ocean to ocean, making it hard to keep track. Some of them are even on the so-called ICCAT white list.

Pirate fishing is big business. It is estimated that 20% of the global fish catch is landed by pirate fishing vessels and is worth somewhere between US$4-9 billion a year.

If governments are serious about stopping pirate fishing, it's not enough just to be a member of a management organisation like ICCAT. Making piracy history is not complicated - it simply takes political will and international action to make it happen.

- Sebas, Helene and Dave