Teijo García, Carlos2022-11-082022-11-082022Marine Policy 147 (2023) 105341http://hdl.handle.net/10347/29380This article sets the scene for the contributions in this Special Issue on Criminal sanctions and IUU fishing: the case of Spain. The objective of the collection of papers included in this special issue is to stimulate an academic conversation about whether or not it would be appropriate to intensify the application of criminal sanctions in Spain for serious cases of illegal fishing. There are two main reasons to justify the connection of this international debate on the best legal means to fight against illegal fishing with the particular case of Spain. The first is the significance of the Spanish distant-water fleet, both in terms of the EU and on an international scale. The second reason is the current context of fisheries law reform in Spaineng© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)Atribución 4.0 Internacionalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Fisheries crimeIUU fishingLaw enforcementAdministrative sanctionsCriminal sanctionsjournal article10.1016/j.marpol.2022.1053410308-597Xopen access