In Africa, the west suffers the most from Illegal, Unreported, and unregulated fishing which necessitated national, regional, and continental efforts to put in place legal mechanisms to halt the situation. This resulted in the fragmentation of rules dealing with IUU, with AU’s 2050 African Maritime Strategy and the Lomé Charter being the grand Continental ones. This article will provide a brief assessment of the legal mechanisms of the African Union vis-à-vis the rules of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the fragmentation or harmonization of those rules. The paper argues that fragmentation of rules at regional and sub-regional levels is not necessarily counterproductive as long as all parties coordinate by focusing on filling existing gaps rather than allowing overlaps.

在非洲，西部受非法，不报告，不管制捕鱼的影响最大，这需要国家，地区和大陆努力建立法律机制来制止这种情况。这导致与IUU有关的规则分散，非盟的《 2050年非洲海事战略》和《洛美宪章》是大陆的主要法律。本文将根据西非国家经济共同体（ECOWAS）的规则对非洲联盟的法律机制进行简要评估），以及这些规则的分散或统一。该论文认为，只要各方通过集中精力弥补现有差距而不是允许重叠，进行协调，区域和次区域级别的规则分裂不一定会适得其反。