To mark the first International day for the fight against IUU fishing, CFFA's brief paper looks critically at the concept of IUU fishing and the policy ideas on how best to fight it. We argue that popular images of IUU fishing are misleading and fail to reflect the nature of the most serious threats to coastal communities. A key aspect lies with the corrupt relationships between governments, political elites and businesses exploiting marine and coastal resources. Because of this, we argue that relying on 'criminal justice' as a solution is insufficient for coastal communities and small-scale fishers.