This Legislative Guide should be used together with A Diagnostic tool for Sustainable Small- Scale Fisheries – advancing the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication in national policy and legal frameworks (hereafter SSF Diagnostic Tool), also developed by FAO. The SSF Diagnostic Tool has been designed to facilitate the identification of national policy and legal frameworks relevant to small-scale fisheries and to conduct a preliminary assessment of how well the SSF Guidelines are already reflected in a country’s fisheries policy and legislation. This Legislative Guide is intended for use by the legislative bodies of states in general, individual national legislators, and those advising on legal reforms. It can also be useful to policymakers, public institutions, judicial authorities and local governments that contribute to designing and implementing fisheries-related legislation, as well as development partners including non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society organizations (CSOs) that work with small-scale fisheries communities and the broader communities they inhabit. Likewise, public- interest law organizations can use this guide to advance the implementation of small-scale fisheries legislation in communities, or to use it to advocate for law reform. The regulatory bodies of the legal profession can also play a key role in mainstreaming the SSF Guidelines in the legal practice through awareness raising, continuing professional development, and dissemination of best practices. This guide may also be of interest to academia. The SSF Guidelines take a holistic approach to small-scale fisheries governance and development, implying that resource management and social and economic development must be addressed simultaneously and given equal importance (paragraphs 3.1 and 4.1). The scope of the SSF Guidelines, hence, extends beyond fisheries. However, this Legislative Guide focuses mainly on Chapter 5 of the Guidelines (Governance of tenure in small-scale fisheries and resource management), illustrating how the recommendations therein are currently covered in conventional fisheries-related legislations of various jurisdictions, and providing advice on how to better align national legislation with the SSF Guidelines. The recommendations of the different sections of the SSF Guidelines are underpinned by a set of guiding principles of which the human rights-based approach (HRBA) is at the centre. This guide follows a similar approach by linking and pursuing the HRBA, where it is considered relevant, in its guiding elements. The HBRA is generally understood as a conceptual framework of human development that is normatively based on international human rights standards and operationally directed at promoting human rights. The relevance of the HRBA to small-scale fisheries should be understood not only in relation to access and management of fisheries, but also from a broader perspective covering vital issues for small-scale fisheries actors, such as health, education, food security and employment. This helps to ensure participation, inclusion and non-discrimination between genders and economic classes, thus empowering right holders so that they have a voice in the decision-making processes that affect their rights and livelihoods, and also giving special attention to vulnerable and marginalized groups. The HRBA calls for fostering non-discriminatory participation of small-scale fishing communities in transparent and responsible decision-making processes that impact on their lives. It seeks to empower fishers and fishworkers, fishing communities, fisheries management organizations, and other right holders to claim their rights, and requires the duty bearers to fulfil their obligations. The application of the HRBA to the management, conservation and development of small- scale fisheries should be understood as the process of providing or securing the rights of small-scale fishers, actors and fishing communities to active, free, meaningful and effective participation in decisions and processes affecting their lives and well-being. This includes freedom of association and assembly (in the case of co-management arrangements) and freedom of expression and information, with special attention to the allocation of provisions for equal gender representation. It also entails the process for ensuring that duties and accountability of small-scale fishers, small-scale fisheries actors and small-scale fishing communities are appropriately set out. While the HRBA is usually not explicitly invoked in typical fisheries legislation or may have not been the cause or incentive for existing legislative provisions that are aligned with the approach, this Legislative Guide recognizes its particular importance for the small- scale fisheries sector, and thus integrates the notion of the HRBA to guide the review, development and enhancement of legislative and governance processes, frameworks and their implementation.