Case Summary
| Citation | Anglo – Norwegian Fisheries Case( UK vs Norway) |
| Keywords | laws of the sea |
| Facts | The coastline of Norway was deeply indented by fjords and sunds (sound) and was fronted by a fringe of islands and rocks (the skjaergaard) which was close to mainland. Norway measured its territorial sea not from the low-water mark but from the straight baselines linking the outermost points of land along it. United Kingdom challenged the legality of Norway’s straight baseline system as Norway enclosed waters within its territorial sea that would have been high seas. |
| Issues | Whether or not by reference to the principles of international law applicable in defining baselines, the Norwegian govt was entitled to delimit fisheries zone and exclusively reserve it to nationals? |
| Contentions | |
| Law Points | The Court concluded that the method of straight lines, established in the Norwegian system, was imposed by the peculiar geography of the Norwegian coast; that even before the dispute arose, this method had been consolidated by a constant and sufficiently long practice, in the face of which the attitude of Governments bears witness to the facts that they did not consider it to be contrary to international law.The Court considered that historical data produced lend some weight to the idea of the survival of traditional rights reserved to the inhabitants of the Kingdom over fishing grounds included in the 1935 delimitation.Such rights, founded on the vital needs of the population and attested by ancient and peaceful uses, may legitimately be taken into account in drawing a line which, moreover, appears to the Court to have been kept within the bounds of what is moderate and reasonable.Although the Court upheld the validity of straight baselines in international law, it made clear that the coastal State does not have an unfettered discretion as to how it draws straight baselines, and it laid down a number of conditions governing the drawing of such baselines. 1. First, such lines must be drawn so that they do “not depart to any appreciable extent from the general direction of the coast”. 2. Secondly, they must be drawn so that the “sea areas lying within these lines are sufficiently closely linked to the land domain to be subject to the regime of internal waters”. 3. Thirdly, the Court stated that it is legitimate to take into account “certain economic interests peculiar to a region, the reality and importance of which are clearly evidenced by a long usage”. |
| Judgement | The Court finally held that the method employed by Norway to delimit its territorial waters was not contrary to international law. The principle of straight baseline was subsequently adopted in Geneva Convention on Territorial Waters and Contiguous Zone of 1958 and U.N. Convention on Law of the Sea, 1982. |
| Ratio Decidendi & Case Authority |
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