AbstractThis paper proposes that the United States Fisheries Conservation and Management Act of 1976 be amended to include tunas in U.S. fisheries jurisdiction. The focus is on the commercial tuna fishing activities of the U.S. West Coast's distant‐water fishery in the eastern and western Pacific, and on the regimes intended to manage those activities. The proposal analyses U.S. domestic and international practice according to the precepts of developing international law, foreign policy, economies, and the conservation of the Tuna Fisheries, asserting that these precepts provide a more comprehensive and integrated reference for a Congressional evaluation of tuna policy than does the disputatious claim to free access to the resource.