The International Court of Justice has ruled that Iceland was not entitled to extend its fishing limits unilaterally from 12 to 50 miles as it did in 1972. The Court, ruling on a British complaint, said Iceland was not entitled to exclude British vessels from areas between the old and the new limits. It also ruled 10 votes to four, that the parties were under mutual obligation to negotiate a solution to their differences in good faith. A similar ruling was given on a West German complaint.

Britain and West Germany filed their complaints with the Court early in 1972 when Iceland announced it was extending the fishing limits effective from Sept. 1 that year. In an interim ruling less than a month before Iceland’s deadline, the Court told the parties to do nothing to aggravate the dispute. It asked Britain and West Germany to limit their catches within the disputed area pending final judgment. Iceland disputed the Court’s jurisdiction and has not been attending any of the sessions in the case.

Britain and Iceland reached a two-year interim agreement on Nov. 13 last year limiting the British catch even more than the Court had suggested.

The Court said it was now being generally accepted that a coastal state could claim exclusive fishing rights within a 12-mile limit and, in respect of waters adjacent to the exclusive zone, preferential rights in a situation of special dependence of its fisheries.

“However,” it said, “the very notion of preferential fishery rights for the coastal state in a situation of special dependence, though it implied a certain priority, could not imply the extinction of the concurrent rights of other states.

“The fact that Iceland was entitled to claim preferential rights did not suffice to justify its claim unilaterally to exclude British fishing vessels from all fishing beyond the limit of 12 miles agreed to in 1961.

“The United Kingdom had pointed out that its vessels had been fishing in Icelandic waters for centuries, that they had done so in a manner comparable with their present activities for upwards of 50 years and that their exclusion would have very serious adverse consequences.”

The Court’s decision was welcomed by the trawler industry. Mr. W. A. Suddaby, President of the British Trawlers Federation, said:— “The Court has shown that we were absolutely right, legally and morally, to take the stand we did. The whole basis of our argument with Iceland was not so much about limits as the unilateral extension of limits which we said was illegal.”

Skipper Tom Neilsen, secretary of Hull Trawler Officers Guild, said that if the decision had gone the other way Britain’s Icelandic fishing would have been finished.