VIII. Conclusion and Recommendations i. Conclusion In recent years, the push for human rights in Taiwan’s fisheries has been divided into three key phases. The first phase began in 2017, with a response to the European Union’s yellow card warning. This involved the enactment of three key laws regulating distant water fisheries and restructuring the domestic legal framework to align with international efforts against illegal fishing. The second phase, in 2022, saw the adoption of the “Action Plan for Fisheries and Human Rights,” which was reviewed and amended after two years of implementation. The third phase involves preparations for domesticating the ILO-C188 Convention. The responsibility for domestic implementation of C188 has shifted from the MOL to the Fisheries Agency under the MOA. Earlier research commissioned by the MOL proposed regulating “fishing vessel crew” as a distinct category under the Seafarer Act, establishing a specific chapter for labor protections before advancing toward a standalone Fishing Vessel Crew Labor Protection Act. However, this approach differs significantly from the Fisheries Agency’s current plan to enact an implementation law. A particularly complex challenge lies in the fact that maritime labor standards intersect with several ILO conventions (see Table 2), making it insufficient to rely solely on C188 to address labor protections for fishing vessel crew. Harmonizing C188 with the broader framework of related conventions in the implementation law will be a significant hurdle. There are 36 conventions addressing the living and working conditions of seafarers. These conventions separate seafarers from those covered under land-based labor conventions, with distinctions made between commercial ship crews under the Maritime Labour Convention (C186) and fishing vessel crews under C188. However, these conventions do not differentiate between domestic and foreign crew, those hired domestically or abroad, or whether they work on distant water or nearshore fisheries— 121