What Were The Cod Wars?
By: Grant Piper
Tags: World, Europe, History, News, United Kingdom

A British fishing trawler (left) passes an Icelandic patrol boat (right) (Public domain)

What Were The Cod Wars?

There is a dispute brewing between the United Kingdom and the European Union over fishing rights surrounding the British Isles. This is the latest in a long, long line of open water fishery disputes that have plagued nations for centuries. The latest Brexit-fueled disagreement over fishing rights, catch limits and territorial sovereignty have evoked comparison’s to the Cod Wars which took place in the 1960s and 1970s.

The present is often an echo of the past. So what were the Cod Wars? What kind of lessons can they teach us about problems today?

A watery background

Icelandic controlled waters highlighted. (Public domain)

Both Iceland and the United Kingdom are island nations with a strong reliance on seafood as a part of their national diets. Fishing in the waters around the UK and Scandinavia has been occurring for hundreds of years. Norse and Anglo fishermen have been sailing the seas in search of fish, wealth and food since ancient times.

In 1901, the much more powerful British Empire got an agreement with Denmark (which at the time controlled Iceland), that limited their sovereign fishing territory to a measly three nautical miles (nm) offshore. The agreement only had a posted period of fifty years and at the time of its signing British fisherman around Iceland were more of a nuisance than a problem.

World War I and World War II saw dramatic decreases in fishing activity due to the heavy fighting at sea but from the 1930s onward, British fishing in Icelandic waters had jumped considerably. They were starting to be a problem rather than just a nuisance. However, the agreement which bound Icelandic fishermen to 3nm only was about to expire so they decided to simply wait the treaty out.

Conflict erupts

Iceland did not become an independent nation until 1944. The previous agreement between Denmark and the British expired in 1951 but Iceland, being a brand new and tiny nation, did not want to wade into the fray until they felt ready.

By 1958, Iceland had passed a new national law which expanded their economic zone from 3nm to 12nm. To the people of Iceland, who were tired of seeing fleets of British trawlers sail up from the northern parts of the UK all weeks of the year, this seemed like a reasonable expansion. The British were not happy.

Not wanting to give up the previously lucrative fishing grounds to an upstart nation, the British declared that they would continue to fish within the twelve mile zone under the protection of military patrol boats. The Cod Wars had kicked off.

The First Cod War lasted from 1958 to 1961 and saw mostly posturing on both sides. Iceland could not run off British patrol vessels and was forced to watch as foreign trawlers steamed into their waters under cannon protection. Instead, Iceland resorted to geopolitical threats to achieve their aims.

This was at the height of the Cold War and Iceland stated flatly that if they were going to be treated poorly by their so-called allies then they would simply pull out of NATO and go it alone, giving the USSR an opening to move into the valuable strategic position.

The threats worked and the British agreed to the new 12nm economic zone after two and a half years of saber rattling and patrols.

The Cod Wars Continue

A collision between an Icelandic ship (foreground) and British frigate (background) (www.hmsbacchante.co.uk / CC BY-SA 2.5)

The Second Cod War was a much tenser and more violent conflict than the first had been. Following a similar pattern that preceded the first fishing conflict, Iceland passed a new law dramatically expanding their exclusive fishing zones from 12nm to 50nm. It was another fourfold increase, similar to the first one but this one was much, much larger.

The Second Cod War would last from September of 1972 to November of 1973.

This time around, the Icelandic marine forces were much more equipped to deal with the British intrusions. Iceland had built new cutters for its Coast Guard and they had a new plan: cut their nets.

Iceland deployed a fleet of fast cutters that were to sail quickly around the lumbering fishing trawlers and cut their nets. Once the nets were severed they would either sink or float free allowing the catch to escape. It was a good plan but they underestimated how aggressive the British patrols would be.

Like in the First Cod War, Britain deployed military craft to protect their fishing fleets from Icelandic harassment and that is when things started to heat up. There were multiple collisions, one which led to the death of an Icelandic engineer.

Just two years later, in 1975, Iceland announced its plans to expand their economic zone from 50nm to 200nm which, to many, was a bridge too far. The Third Cod War broke out in 1975 and led to millions of dollars in damages.

Third time is the charm

The Third Cod War would be the last. At the time of the expansion to 200nm of an exclusive economic zone, the idea was being floated in the United Nations to give those sort of protections to all coastal nations. However, the unilateral expansion that Iceland pushed before any negotiating could be done at the global level rankled everyone, including the Warsaw Pact.

The third and final Cod War lasted just over six months but was the most costly yet. The British activated nearly two dozen frigates, some of them with reinforced wooden bows, to be used in specialized ramming operations with the intention of simply ramming the Icelandic Coast Guard cutters out of the way.

The British were now wise to the Icelandic strategy of quickly cutting nets and sailing away. Instead of threatening to shoot the cutters, instead, they simply sailed up and rammed the ships before they could cut the nets. This kind of sailing was extremely dangerous and led to serious damage on both sides of the conflict.

According to records there would be 55 ramming incidents during the Third Cod War.

Despite all of the bluster and ramming on the high seas, the outcome was the same as before. The new limits were eventually recognized and respected.

Results and lessons for today

Current oceanic economic zones as observed today. (Liam Mason / CC BY-SA 4.0)

The results of the final of the three Cod Wars actually led to the codification of a 200nm economic exclusionary zone around every coastal nation in the world. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was passed and is still followed to this day and was largely influenced by the ongoing conflicts that the Cod Wars spawned.

Today, a similar conflict is brewing between the UK and the EU over fishing rights within the waters that lie between EU countries and the newly economically independent United Kingdom. Just as in the Cod Wars, both sides are threatening to posture on the high seas and invade territorial waters with patrol craft and fishing boats.

The Icelandic fishing expansion drastically damaged the fishing industries in the northern parts of the UK, an economic downturn that still effects some of the old fishing towns in the region. The UK is hoping to avoid a similar outcome in their conflict with the EU over fishing rights.

Iceland showed the world that you can defend territorial waters in an aggressive manner and still get the outcomes you want, something that generally fuels more intense conflicts in the future. Iceland achieved all of its goals against a much larger, wealthier and more established United Kingdom through tenacity, aggressive behavior and an unwillingness to back down from a conflict.

The Cod Wars remain a sore subject for many people and they highlight an ancient brand of battle over fish. Who gets to catch them? How many should we catch? Where can we fish? Those questions have been asked for hundreds of years and continue to be asked today.