A recurring row has broken out over the island of Rockall, an uninhabited rock in the Atlantic whose ownership is disputed between the UK and Ireland. The Scottish government, under whose jurisdiction Rockall falls, has banned Irish vessels which traditionally fish there from doing so.

This is an article in the Derry Journal today:

Donegal T.D. Pádraig Mac Lochlainn has claimed the Greencastle fishing fleet could be losing up to 30 per cent of its income due to the British blockade of its traditional Rockall fishing grounds.

He branded Britain’s refusal to allow Inishowen fishers access to the seas around the rock – a fertile ground for squid and fish species, particularly haddock, sole and monkfish – ‘absolute nonsense’.

Speaking in Dáil Éireann prior to the St. Patrick’s week recess, Deputy Mac Lochlainn said: “This is outrageous. There is no basis in international law for putting a nautical mile limit around an uninhabited rock. There is no basis for this under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

“It is absolute nonsense. How on earth is the Government tolerating this? How is it not being taken to international arbitration? Why did the Government sign off on the Maritime Jurisdiction Act on access for the British Government to and control of the area at a time when it is negotiating to reinstate our traditional fishing grounds to our fishermen? Who on earth would tolerate that?

“We talk about Brexit and the attitude of the Tories. They have arbitrarily kicked Irish fishermen out of our traditional fishing grounds, with no international legal basis for doing so.”

Martin Heydon, Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, replied: “As Taoiseach, the Minister [current Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs] Deputy [Micheál] Martin, last discussed the matter of Rockall with Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, at the end of last year.

“It was agreed to prioritise this matter and continue to work together to seek to resolve the outstanding issues.

“As Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney met his Scottish counterpart, the Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture, Angus Robertson, to discuss the issue.

“They agreed to continue to prioritise this matter and work together to seek to resolve outstanding issues. Working together with the Department of Foreign Affairs, there are active discussions between the Irish and Scottish side exploring all options. Further discussions at political and official level are planned over the coming period.”

British claims to ownership of the uninhabited rock, which is located 430 kilometres from Bloody Foreland and 461.5 kilometres from Ardnamurchan, the nearest point on the Scottish mainland, have never been recognised.

Deputy Heydon explained that ‘Ireland has never made any claims to, nor has Ireland ever recognised UK sovereignty claims over, Rockall’ and that ‘accordingly, it has not recognised a 12 nautical mile territorial sea around it’.

However, under the terms of the Brexit Trade & Cooperation Agreement (TCA) between the EU and the UK, Donegal fishers have not been granted licences to fish within the 12 mile limit.

“Approximately 25 Irish vessels have fished in the waters around Rockall during the spring and summer months in recent years.

“Under the EU-UK TCA EU vessels must be licensed by the UK authorities. Since January 1, 2021 the licences issued by the UK to EU vessels, where granted, expressly preclude access to the 12 nautical mile zone around Rockall,” he said.

Britain’s claims are seemingly based on the fact the rock is located 301.3 kilometres west of the uninhabited island of Soay in the Outer Hebrides. It is 423 kilometres west of Tory.

Technically, I am afraid the Irish fishermen are wrong. As an uninhabited rock, Rockall cannot generate an exclusive economic zone of 200 miles for fisheries. But it can generate a 12 mile territorial sea, within which fisheries can be controlled by the sovereign state.

The point is that the sovereignty is disputed by the UK and Ireland. Who owns a barren piece of rock is not easy to establish, especially as the UK and Ireland were one state when sovereignty was first formally asserted.

In these circumstances, to ban Irish vessels from traditional grounds is peculiarly provocative by the Scottish government. It is very strange behaviour when they are supposed to be courting EU countries to support Scottish Independence.

I am told by a Scottish Government source it is driven by the Scottish Greens on conservation grounds, though the notion that banning strictly controlled fishing from one 24 mile diameter circle in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean makes any difference is frankly crazy.

I would hope that an Independent Scotland would abandon the UK’s obsession with collecting territories, and agree joint sovereignty with Ireland over Rockall. There is an important point here that is not generally understood.

Sovereignty over Rockall does not affect anything except the 12 miles territorial sea. It has no impact at all on the UK/Irish exclusive economic zone or continental shelf boundaries.

Rockall is not used at all as a base point or reference point in either of those boundaries. I know because I was part of the team that negotiated them, as Head of the Maritime Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The exclusion of Rockall was perfectly deliberate on both sides, because the need to agree the boundary, especially the continental shelf boundary for oil and gas, was urgent as otherwise exploration and development might be impeded. Importing a territorial dispute into the negotiations would have been unhelpful to all concerned.

So the Rockall dispute is an utterly pointless dispute, over national pride and a few haddock close to the rock. It saddens me to see the Scottish government acting as daftly jingoistic towards Dublin as their London counterparts.

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