The objective of the chapter is to provide fishery managers with some understanding of the institutions involved in fishery policy making and management with particular emphasis on the institutions and its linkages with the supporting legal framework within which the respective roles and responsibilities of the different actors are established. The chapter will often distinguish the management of the whole sector from that of individual fisheries which, while necessarily nested, may require different considerations. Fishery management is institutionally complex. It is concerned with the selection, on the basis of scientific advice, of the fishing regime most appropriate to meet policy objectives. Its main difficulties, however, come from the regulation of human behavior, negotiation between diverging interests