Nearly a quarter century after the 1984 World Conference on Fisheries Management and Development, organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and 13 years after the formulation of the 1995 FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, FAO will be organizing a global conference, in association with the Royal Government of Thailand, on "Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries" (the 4 SSF Conference) in Bangkok from 13 to 17 October, 2008. The proposed focus of the forthcoming 2008 conference is to secure access and user rights of small-scale fishers, indigenous peoples and fishing communities to coastal and fishery resources that sustain their livelihoods.