Route 1 talks from 2001 → two decades → only a partial deal → science of depletion is agreed → the fight is over the rule-writing principle

Route 2 uniform non-discrimination vs differentiated responsibility → who built the overcapacity decides who cuts

~US$35 bn/year subsidies, ~22% on fuel → distant-water fleets pushed into poorer states’ EEZs → that capacity rests on capital + technology the South lacks → CBDR + polluter-pays → two sides solving different problems: conservation (Friends of Fish; caps on capacity-enhancing subsidies) vs livelihood (3 bn people, one-fifth of animal protein) → India: prohibitions only outside territorial waters, fuel rebates + motorisation spared → crunch point = SDT → 25-year phase-out vs ~7 → draft still bracketed on fuel and vessel subsidies → SDT is not alien to the WTO (extra time already granted) → Stiglitz / Rodrik on policy space

developed case is not simple obstruction → stocks 90% (1974) → 65.8% (2017), so delay carries a cost → developing status is self-declared → a wide exemption could shelter large industrial subsidisers → Japan / South Korea / Chinese Taipei contest the subsidy–overfishing link itself

Route 1 MC12 (June 2022) delivered where equity could be bypassed — IUU, overfished stocks, unregulated high seas — and failed on overcapacity, where it could not

Route 2 deadlock is structural, not tactical → identical rules for unequal fleets → until differentiated rules become possible, Strange’s charge of drift into irrelevance stands