Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1963, Page 132

138
Fiskimarkið
expressed in a report from the ’Løgting' of the Faroe Islands in 1898:
’ . . . The procedure of the trawlers is most rational. Some ten ships
gather side by side with just so much space between them that their
gear does not collide. They are then trawling in the same direction,
all of them . . . In the eariy summer the prospects of a good catch
of haddock in the waters north of the islands were promising; but
this fishery has failed totally as a result of the activity of the trawlers
. . . The summer fishery has miscarried . . . and it is to be feared
that next year’s fishery has been destroyed too . . . ‘.
In 1901 the Faroese fishery limit according to a convention between
Great Britain and Denmark was fixed at 3 miles. According to a cons
vention from 1955 this limit got certain local extensions (see map).
In 1959 Great Britain and Denmark agreed upon a Faroese fishery
limit of 12 miles in relation to other countries than Great Britain, and
6 miles with certain extensions in relation to Great Britain (see map).
According to a convention in 1961 between Great Britain and Ice«
land, Great Britain has recognised that Iceland has a fishery limit of
12 miles measured from straight baselines. As far as Great Britain is
concerned, this limit came into full force on March 12, 1964. Denmark
has unilaterally decided that the Faroese fishery limit from the same
day is 12 miles measured from straight baselines drawn around the
islands as a whole (see map). This decision was not made till Denmark
had tried in vain to get an agreement with Great Britain similar to
the one between Iceland and Great Britain.
During the Geneva conferences on the law of the sea much syms
pathetic attention was given to the case of the isolated islands in the
North Atlantic, where the fisheries are the only staple industry. On
the 1958 conference a resolution was passed, dealing with these special
cases (see appendix). But no provision of special fishery limits in these
cases was agreed upon.
De lege lata it is not warranted to establish a special Faroese fishery
limit on grounds of necessity or similar criteria. The author, however,
defends the opinion that the new Faroese limit is not contrary to the
general rules of international law. He makes the allegation that the
validity as to non»signatory states of the 12 miles fishery limit, recently
agreed upon in London by most of the states of Western Europe,
presupposes that a territorial limit of 12 miles is not contrary to inter*
national law, as the justification of a unilaterally fixed fishery limit
is to be found in the assumption that the coastal state has a right to
a territorial limit of the same extension, a right which it arbitrarily
chooses to use in regard to fisheries only. The validity of the straight
baselines, drawn around the Faroe Islands as a whole, the author bases
upon an analogy from article 4 in the convention on the territorial