This chapter will focus on the institutional aspects of fisheries and biodiverSity in the Indian Ocean. It is intended to provide a background to the more specialist discussions that follow in later chapters. It is proposed to deal, first, though only very briefly, with the international legal background to the modern fisheries regime, and its slow recognition of the importance of biodiverSity. Unfortunately, many of the provisions in the modern law of the sea that concern fisheries and marine biodiversity are still being implemented only in a piecemeal way
