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Sumaila, U. R. 2013. How to make progress in disciplining overfishing subsidies. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 70: 251–258.The World Trade Organization (WTO) has been working for more than seven years now to discipline overfishing subsidies, as mandated by the global community, without success. I argue that this failure is partly because WTO negotiators aim for an all-inclusive deal, i.e. negotiations are conducted as a “single undertaking”, whereby results must be achieved in all areas. Negotiators are required to broker an all-inclusive deal for all maritime WTO member countries and for all fisheries, whether domestic or international; small or large scale; developing or developed country fisheries. It is argued here that this commitment to a “single undertaking” does not align the incentive to remove subsidies with national interests, and therefore needs to be changed by splitting the world's fisheries into domestic and international fisheries. In this way, the battle for eliminating overfishing subsidies for some stocks would shift to home countries, and for others this would still rest with the international community. This split, it is argued, would align the incentives and improve the chances of eliminating overfishing subsidies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]