British Icelandic Cod Wars

The problems of distant-water trawling centred on limited access due to claims of territorial rights. The British distant-water fishing industry was based on the idea of freedom of the high seas, and the assumption that the sea was an open resource to be exploited. This idea was increasingly challenged in the post-war period. The Icelandic government had long-standing concerns about the depletion of fish stocks along its coast. Following independence from Denmark in 1944, Iceland annulled the Anglo-Danish