A barren rock at the center of an ongoing peaceful dispute in the North Atlantic
Rockall is the summit of an extinct volcano located in the North Atlantic Ocean west of Scotland, northwest of Ireland, south of the Faroe Islands, and southeast of Iceland. Claims have been made with respect to Rockall by the United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland, and Denmark (on behalf of the Faroe Islands). The first recorded landing on Rockall was in 1810 by a landing party from a Royal Navy frigate. The islet was rammed, though, in 1686 by a Spanish-French fishing vessel. Several crewmembers survived the casualty and sailed a pinnace to Scotland. Other documented ramming occurred in 1812, 1824, and 1904. In 1955, the islet was officially annexed by the United Kingdom when a Royal Navy team hoisted the Union Jack and cemented a brass plaque on the rock formally taking possession in the name of the Queen. In 1972, the Island of Rockall Act received Royal Assent, making the islet part of the Isle of Harris, Scotland. The nations that previously made territorial claims to the waters surrounding Rockall have effectively abandoned those claims by acceding to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which provides that rocks which cannot sustain human habitation shall have no exclusive economic zone (EEZ) or continental shelf of their own. Rockall is about 100 feet long and 83 feet wide and rises to a height of 70 feet. It supports a limited number of marine mollusks and is visited occasionally by seabirds. Even though there are no longer any effective territorial claims on the islet itself, there are competing claims to the resources of the seabed. Each of the four adjacent nations asserts that Rockall lies within extensions of their respective continental shelves. While no oil, gas, or mineral deposits have yet been discovered in the vicinity of Rockall, none of these nations wants to forgo the possibility. Thus, the ongoing dispute is subject to intermittent negotiations. Submissions are being made to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in an effort to bring the dispute to closure.