A Tiny Island Claimed by Four Nations
Rockall
is a tiny island—a rock, really—in the north Atlantic Ocean. Ireland,
the UK, Denmark and Iceland all lay claim to it. For more than 60 years,
those nations have been locked in a quiet struggle for possession of
it.
The island is a volcanic plug that is only 764 square meters
in area. It would be almost impossible to settle. So you might think
that this dispute would be a minor issue, but it’s not. That’s because
international treaties give nations sovereign control over the use of
waters and continental shelves off their coasts. What’s at stake in the
Rockall dispute is not a bit of almost inaccessible land, but 422,000
square kilometers of water--and the apparently substantial natural gas
resources beneath the ocean floor.
In
1810, Britain attempted to lay the first claim with a Royal Navy
expedition to the island. A similar 1955 expedition placed a plaque and
the Union flag on the island and claimed it in the name of Queen
Elizabeth II. An act of Parliament in 1972 affirmed the island’s legal
status as far as the United Kingdom was concerned.
Irish
sentiment on the subject can be summarized by the popular song “Rock on
Rockall” by the band The Wolfe Tones. It’s embedded above. Here’s a
selection of the lyrics:
Oh rock on Rockall, you'll never fall to Britain's greedy hands
Or you'll meet the same resistance that you did in many lands
May the seagulls rise and pluck your eyes and the water crush your shell,
And the natural gas will burn your ass and blow you all to hell.
So
some Irishmen feel rather strongly about the issue. What precisely is
the Irish claim to Rockall? That is more difficult for me to determine,
but it appears that Ireland, Denmark and Iceland dispute the limits of
their relative continental shelves. Each nation's claim overlaps with
the others.
No comments:
Post a Comment