Introduction

Rockall is the most remote and most contested piece of the British Isles. Its tiny size (less than 100 feet high) and hostile environment (frequently washed by huge waves with no soil or permanent life bigger than molluscs or seaweed) belie its geopolitical significance. For Rockall is the key to huge territorial ambitions fuelled by a heady mix of oil and fish.

Four nations claim sovereignty over the seas around it, each relying on different legal precedents and arguments. Geologically, another – Canada - may have the strongest claim of all. For decades its only human visitors have been military and private adventurers, scientists or seafarers intent on furthering the claims of their respective country. Britain, Ireland, Iceland and Denmark all lay claim to the area, together with a Scottish Clan.

The story of Rockall is a veritable saga of political intrigue, secret diplomacy, inscrutable and often incomprehensible legalistic "agreements", covert missions, military fears and the greed of nations.

Rockall is best known to Britons as a place on the shipping forecast. But it is best known within the confines of Whitehall as a strategic prize to be secured for the natural resources that lie around it. Not the rock itself – it is a pretty valueless stump of a defunct volcano – but the oil and gas that lies below the "Rockall Plateau" and the "Rockall Trough" that surround it.

Today it has a new significance. It symbolises government thinking that is itself redundant. The long term strategic interest of nations, and the well being of the planet, depend on shifting away from fossil fuels and into renewable forms of energy (the potential for which Rockall of course, is also surrounded by in abundance). The exploitation of Rockall's oil riches are part of the larger "Atlantic Frontier" development, a scheme hatched in the late 1960s and spurred on by the "oil shock" of 1973/4, at a time when the West thought it needed to secure ever more oil. But the logic of climate change is that the world cannot afford to ever burn all the reserves of fossil fuels it already has, let alone any more it might discover.

So Rockall stands at several frontiers. The old – represented by the fossil fuel age and the Atlantic Frontier oil development – and the new, the route to the future and protection of the global commons, requiring energy that works with nature and not against it.

Greenpeace believes that the time has come when industrial governments have to cross that frontier into new thinking about sane energy, to end the search for new fossil fuel reserves, to begin the steps that lead to a phase out of fossil fuels designed to keep the world within tolerable limits of climate change, and to recognize that here, to protect the global commons of the atmosphere, we can and should set aside this part of the ocean as a global commons not to be exploited.

This is the Rockall Saga.

Rockall: The Place and The Landings

This report is presented as a chronology of events. Through the years are threaded several major strands of developments that at first appear quite distinct: the activities of journalists, fishermen, navies, oil companies and diplomats for example. No attempt is made to separate them here, for this is not an academic study but simply a scrap book of what has happened - but in fact they are mostly linked, and driven by the greed of nations for natural resources.

Rockall is surrounded by almost as many myths and legends as it has waves washing around it. Its first reliably recorded appearance on a map is as Rocal in an Amsterdam atlas of 1606, placed only 87 miles away from its real position. The Norse marked a 'Friesland' on their charts - meaning a low area of shoals - and this is thought to be Rockall. The Irish Saint Brendan is also traditionally believed to have landed there in the Sixth Century.

Captain Coats travelling from Hudson Bay to Britain, is said to have fixed its position accurately in 1745, and if not him, Captain Vidal on HMS Pike did in 1831. In a 1971 debate in the Commons Mr William Ross, MP for Kilmarnock claimed "more people have landed on the moon than have landed on Rockall from the sea".

According to some Celtic legends, it was "the last remnant of Brasil … the "Western Land of Eternal Youth" which was submerged by the Atlantic". For a long time it was wrongly thought to be the breeding place of the mysterious and albatross- like great shearwater, which is often seen feeding in the surrounding, fish-rich waters. It is said to have been regarded as part of Scotland since the Battle of the Largs when the Western Isles were taken from the Norsemen. According to a Gaelic dictionary Rockall means "Roaring" and was known "from time immemorial" to Hebridean sea farers as the "sea rock of Roaring".

The rock causes a magnetic anomaly, resulting in wild fluctuations to ships compasses. Rockall and the reefs and waters around it have also been the scene of disasters, some as recently as this year. In 1904 the Danish emigrant ship Norge was wrecked there on its way to New York, with the loss of 600 lives. In 1824 the Helen of Dundee foundered on reefs at Rockall and "the crew left most of the passengers to drown, including seven women and six children".

Up to the 1950s, recorded landings on Rockall were restricted to HMS Endymion in 1810, and others in 1862, 1921 and 1948, with two abortive attempts by the Royal Irish Academy.

The 1810 landing party measured it at 83 feet across and 70 feet high. In 1862 "a boat from HMS Porcupine attempted a landing but only one man got ashore and was unable to climb the precipitous rock, but 26 years later the skipper of a Grimsby fishing smack landed and got to the summit".

In 1896 Robert Lloyd Praeger and colleagues set out from Killybegs in South-west Donegal and reached Rockall for the Royal Irish Academy on the Congested Districts Board steamer the Granuaile but only managed to make water colour sketches and two abortive landing attempts before returning, exhausted by two weeks rolling about at sea, to Londonderry.

Seton Gordon, has written that during World War I "as I heard from one of the officers concerned, the cruiser escorting a convoy narrowly escaped destruction here on a dark night. The look out reported a suspicious vessel. She was challenged and when she failed to reply, or to show any signal, orders were given to ram. As the cruiser, gathering speed approached, those on board, tense with expectation, saw, just in time, that the supposed enemy ship was Rockall, and the supposed bow wave was the surf beating upon its dark base".

In 1921 the appropriately named French research vessel Pourquoi Pas put people ashore and in 1948 a man from the Fleetwood trawler Bulby swam around the rock on a float.

In World War II it was used in navigational exercises by the British Royal Air Force but was also mistaken for the conning tower of a German submarine. At other times it has been mistaken as an iceberg.

For a time the rock was wrongly thought to be composed of a unique material named "Rockallite".

In the cold war of the 1950s, the British Government viewed Rockall as a security risk. Whitehall feared that the Soviet Union might build an observation platform or place measuring instruments on the rock in order to track missiles being test-fired into the Atlantic from a range on South Uist in the Hebrides which lie to the east.

Consequently it was seized by Britain on 18 September 1955. On 22 September 1955 The Times reported that the Admiralty had announced "the formal annexation of Rockall" for the Queen, by a "landing party from HMS Vidal, the 2,000 ton survey ship". The paper noted: "Rockall, a Ministry of Defence spokesman said …… belonged to no nation. It had been formally claimed by the Crown to eliminate the possibility of embarrassing counter-claims once the Hebridean guided missiles project was underway". A helicopter was used to reach the rock. At the time the Vidal was the only helicopter carrying research vessel in the world.

[Similar fears of this period fuelled British claims on Antarctica – at one point the UK Government feared that a long range Soviet bomber base might be built there.]

The Daily Telegraph commented "spying may be possible in Whitehall but it will not be tolerated on Rockall". The newspaper saw wider significance in the act and remarked "At the United Nations some will be disposed to speak of naked imperialism. Others will prefer to call it a tall story. In either case it is important that the British attitude should be firm. Indeed the operation should be crowned by a defiant gesture. The next first Lord who wishes to remain a lord on leaving the Admiralty should chose the title Rockall". The Telegraph stated presciently: "Who knows but what ex-President Peron might have had designs on Rockall after the manner in which he claimed ownership of that older outpost of Empire, the Falkland Islands ?"

The British cemented on a brass plaque, hammered in climbing spikes and added ring bolts near the water line, before hoisting the Union Jack. Lt Commander Desmond Scott from Whitstable in Kent took possession of the rock with the words "In the name of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, I hereby take possession of the island of Rockall". The Daily Herald reported that "during the annexation proceedings the ship steamed slowly past the rock and fired a salute of 21 guns".

While according to the UK Government this made Rockall part of the "dominions" of the Crown, it did not make it part of the United Kingdom: that was to come in the 1970s.

The 1955 landing included James Fisher, a well known naturalist. Geological and biological samples were taken including lichens and periwinkles. According to The Herald it ended with a signal to the Admiralty "Operation Rockall successfully completed" with the reply from Admiral Earl Mountbatten "Well done".

The 1955 landing was unusual in that it took place in September rather than midsummer, and the party narrowly escaped a gale which blew up the next day. Due to the extreme weather conditions at Rockall, almost every other attempt has been made in the calmest summer months.

James Fisher later wrote about his adventures in The Standard. Fisher had overflown Rockall in 1947 and 1949 to photograph it and look for breeding seabirds. His conclusion had been that while some guillemots might attempt to nest there, their eggs were certainly washed off in June storms in the year he studied, and probably more often. "I found myself showing to the scientific staff of the Admiralty my collection of information and photographs" wrote Fisher "there was what I can only describe as a "high-level" hush about the interview from which I departed sworn to secrecy but delighted with an invitation … letters pursued me in sealed envelopes marked "Top Secret" in red …." Specimens from Rockall were put on display in the Geological Museum in London and in Edinburgh's Royal Scottish Museum.

The Royal Navy's visit to claim Rockall for the Crown also stimulated a counter claim by the Clan Mackay. The New York Herald Tribune reported on 7 October 1955 from Portree on the Isle of Skye that "what looked like a singularly peaceful acquisition has suddenly been exposed as a deplorable act of piracy". It explained "In a passionate declaration before the Northern Fire Committee [sic] at Portree on the romantic Isle of Skye, 84 year old Highlander Councillor J. Abrach Mackay announced 'My old father, God rest his soul, claimed that island for the Clan of Mackay in 1846 and I now demand that the Admiralty hand it back. It's no' theirs'." Another member of the committee commented to the newspaper "it wouldn't surprise me to see a battleship appearing off Rockall any day. You can't afford to underestimate the Mackays".

Cabinet Papers released in 1985 under the "thirty years rule" revealed that the decision to claim Rockall was indeed motivated by fears that a foreign power might occupy the rock as it was "sufficiently near to the [firing range] to be an embarrassment".

Foreign Office officials noted that "the immediate use for Rockall is nebulous, but it is hoped that in time it may provide an aiming target, and it would be rather unfortunate if someone claimed it first and used it as an observation point".

Whitehall was "more concerned about the reactions of Iceland than of Ireland and the implications for disputed fishing rights". After much discussion HMS Vidal was despatched and the plaque fixed because a Foreign Office lawyer advised that "some physical sign of the claim must be left behind".

In 1959 the Royal Navy returned, landing a party of ratings from the destroyer Cavendish. The party spent an hour there and found that the brass plaque of 1955 had disappeared, and only one leg of the tripod flagstaff remained. The sailors inscribed the name of their ship in quick drying cement and fixed a stone tablet to record their visit.

In 1969 the Navy was back. The Daily Mail reported on 17 April that "it's absolutely and undeniably British. The Navy has just invaded it for the third time - to make quite sure". This time they arrived by inflatable boat and unfurled a White Ensign on the top of the rock. "Then" according to The Mail, the sailors "posed for photographs ... lasting proof that to use Shakespeare's words, this fortress built by nature for herself is still as British as the River Thames".

Two years later one of the sailors, Lt John Stafferton RN wrote to the Sunday Telegraph that the 1969 landing was on 25 March and "opportunity was taken to investigate the birdlife of the rock by the ornithological expert on board. From observations it was decided that the rock was merely used as a stopping off point for birds crossing the Atlantic and not as a breeding ground".

The Mail still referred to the missile range as the reason for the occupation but by 9 October The Guardian reported "Rockall may yield gas". It said: "There may be oil or natural gas on the Rockall Plateau in the North Atlantic 300 miles north west of Ireland. The research ship Discovery has reported a new sedimentary basin on the plateau. Similar sedimentary basins exist in the Irish Sea, where gas has already been found. The discovery was made by obtaining reflections from buried sedimentary strata nearly 10,000 feet below the sea floor. Reflected signals were received by a half-mile-long hydrophone array towed behind the research ship".

The Financial Times reported that the survey was carried out by the National Institute of Oceanography and Cambridge University and reported by the Natural Environment Research Council.

1969 saw intensive geological research in the area, initiated by the Government in the search for oil and gas. It was confirmed in the House of Commons that this was "undertaken by the Natural Environmental Research Council through the National Institute of Oceanography and a team from Cambridge University". The Government also confirmed that it would "assert for Great Britain the exclusive right to exploit resources on or under the Rockall Bank"

The science journal Nature explained on August 23 that Rockall was found to be an extinct volcano and that the relatively shallow seas around Rockall might be underlain by a "missing" piece in the pattern of tectonic plates making up the earth's crust in the Atlantic.

On 23 January 1970 Rockall gas was again in the news when Harold Jackson of The Guardian wrote that Rockall "beloved only of generations of seagulls and meteorologists" was "on the brink of wider fame". The island "looks as if it may be sitting on a natural gas field of North Sea dimensions - and Britain's exploration rights look shaky".

Geologists from the 1969 survey interviewed by The Guardian indicated that they thought Rockall was a fragment of a western continent rather than an eastern one: i.e. Greenland rather than Scotland.

This, noted the newspaper, "is all relevant because of Britain's adherence to the International Convention on the Continental Shelf, which lays down that we can dig up anything from oil to oysters on any bit of sea around us which has less than 200 metres of water over it. We are allowed to go beyond that if the depth allows exploitation of natural resources and in areas adjacent to the coasts of islands".

"The snag is" said The Guardian, "that between oil-rich Rockall (as the guide books will doubtless say) and Scotland, there is a hole in the sea bed about 400 miles long, 80 miles wide and 9,000 feet deep. It is not, in the state of the oilman's art at the moment what you might call pipeline country ... but the whole area is, of course, "adjacent to Rockall". Does an uninhabited island come within the terms of the convention. It seems unlikely. Can it be argued that Rockall is an integral part of the United Kingdom ? That seems pretty doubtful".

The Guardian observed that British and other geologists believed Rockall was geologically part of North America and Greenland rather than Britain. "It cannot therefore, really be said to form part of the Continental Shelf of Great Britain".

Because of UK Government secrecy, one can only imagine what panic these thoughts were sending through the inhabitants of Whitehall. Geologists, even officially sponsored ones, were supplying troublesome findings, yet Britain relied on geology for its case. Even worse, there was the United Nations to contend with.

"At present" said the Guardian, the UN had a "special sub committee trying to sort out the problem of exploration rights on the sea bed. It may well turn out that Rockall will be one of its first headaches". The Danes, it noted, could make out a strong case. "Last night" said The Guardian, "the Foreign Office gave up the struggle and reckoned it was something for the Home Office. If the Home Office knew anything, it kept it to itself. And on Rockall, the guano grew one day older".

Perhaps galvanised into action by the prospect of lawyers and geologists further undermining its claims, the UK Government wasted no time in resorting to the expedient of claiming Rockall by being there: "we are here, it's ours", has been the linchpin of their sovereignty argument ever since.

So 1971 saw another visit by the British military. The Defence Staff of the Sunday Telegraph recorded "Geologists returned yesterday from a secret survey of Rockall ... the purpose was threefold - to seek indications of natural gas or oil, to prepare a site for a navigation light and possibly a helicopter landing platform, and to reinforce Britain's claim to the rock ... there are fears the Russians might try to annex the rock. The Government also think that some of the foreign-owned oil companies now drilling in the North Sea might move in".

In winter 1971 the British Government tried to clinch its case by making Rockall subject to the same rules and regulations as might apply in Ruislip or Romford. Harold Jackson of The Guardian was back on the case, reporting on 4 November 1971 that a Rockall Bill was introduced to the House of Lords, to incorporate it into the United Kingdom. The Royal Navy had planted the flag in 1955 but thanks to the International Convention on the Continental Shelf, there were doubts on the claim. Now though, "it looks as if mere geography is not going to be allowed to stand between an Englishman and his central heating. Freaks of nature have never stopped the House of Lords in the past and they are certainly not going to do so now".

Lady Tweedsmuir, moving the second reading of the Bill in the House of Lords on November 18, said that "we have the strange situation that although this is one of her Majesty's possessions it is not subject to any administrative or legal system". The Government had decided to remedy this situation and incorporate the island into the United Kingdom.

There was clearly only a limited need for day to day regulation of matters such as farming, forestry, traffic or even planning controls on Rockall but the Government was quite clear about the reason for making it subject to UK laws. "It would be possible" recorded the Times Parliamentary report "once Rockall was incorporated in the United Kingdom for an order to be made under the Continental Shelf Act, 1964, designating the area for purposes of exploration and exploitation. With the rapid development of new techniques of seabed exploration this was a matter which would no doubt receive the attention of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in due course".

On the other hand, Baroness Tweedsmuir said "so far as it is known at the moment there is no evidence of hydrocarbon deposits".

The report continued "Lord Tanlaw said that during the war the island was used by her Majesty's ships for target practice. It would be helpful to have an undertaking that this would not happen again. After all the efforts to put this small island on the map it would be a terrible tragedy if some enthusiast from strategic command were able to remove it in the course of his duty".

Lord Kennet said it was remembered by those in the Navy as a "dreadful place". The Opposition, he added "supported the Bill because it was bad to have bits of land anywhere sticking out of the sea, the status of which in national law and therefore international law was in any way in doubt".

The Times wrote that "the possibility that oil may be found" was one of the reasons for the Bill. In The Daily Mail, Ian Brown put it this way: "Too small even to be a dot on a map, its only claim to fame is its distinction of being further from the mainland than any other rock of its size in the world" so why should there be a Bill ? "the answer is OIL". He added: "It now seems a safe bet that Rockall will no longer be left to the gulls, guillemots, kittiwakes and the weather men".

Lord Tanlaw appealed for Rockall, "this small speck, if you like, on our planet's surface" to be "left alone by homo sapiens in perpetuity". Such an assurance from the Government would, he said "be no more than a token gesture, but on the other hand, it might go some way towards confirming the sincerity of the Government's intentions to safeguard our environment for the future".

Lord Kennet saw that "the annexation of Rockall to Harris opens up a larger question ... the carve up of the sea bed beyond national limits throughout the world".

Not to be left out, the Daily Telegraph wrote that "titters" greeted Lady Tweedsmuir in the 'Lords as she announced blandly that "Rockall, mostly known to the public from gale warnings, was to be incorporated into 'that part of the United Kingdom known as Scotland'." Geological surveys had been conducted, and, ominously "Denmark and the United States showed an interest".

The Parliamentary Staff of The Telegraph thought it worthwhile to report that Lord Kennet pointed out that "would be residents would attract housing subsidies and 75 percent improvement grants when their homes were battered by the waves".

In answer to a question in the Commons, Mr Gordon Campbell stated for the Government that the nearby Helen's Reef, two miles north east of Rockall, "lies within the territorial limits of Rockall and is therefore subject to Her Majesty's sovereignty". Another Government Minister, Anthony Royle, said that although the Irish Government had "questioned" Britain's right to police fishing around Rockall, "we have replied rejecting the Irish view and reaffirming our position".

Kilmarnock MP William Ross foresaw problems, saying in the Commons debate "Just before we came to this Bill we recognized the freedom of Sierra Leone and made it a republic. No doubt one day we shall have a Republic of Rockall Bill".

He added: "It is said that it was because the Scottish Office was anxious to have a place where there was no unemployment, and somewhere that the Prime Minister could visit without meeting a protesting delegation, that it decided that it had to annex Rockall".

The Bill received the Royal Assent on February 10 1972. Rockall became part of Invernes-shire. In June 1972 the Government despatched "a combined expedition" to "set up a flashing navigational beacon" to aid shipping.

The fixing of the flashing navigational beacon provided yet another opportunity for the press to repeat the story of landings on Rockall and for the Navy to be seen to do something useful. This time, it was a 15 day operation involving two helicopters from 816 Squadron on board HMS Engadine, scientists and divers. Gale force winds and a heavy swell held up proceedings for four days even though the month was June.

The navigation light was designed to run without maintenance for a year at a time and would be the responsibility of the Government rather than Trinity House. Yet another plaque was fixed there at the same time.

The placing of the beacon also stimulated a correspondence in The Times about whether or not any birds nested on Rockall. Michael Bizony of Horsham in Sussex wrote: "The belief, freshly reaffirmed by Mr Seton Gordon in his letter of 7 July, that guillemots lay and occasionally hatch eggs on Rockall has been held for many years with admirable tenacity in the face of the following facts: although most of the recorded visits to Rockall took place in the breeding season, no one has seen eggs or fledglings; the only fragment of egg-shell ever found on Rockall was rubber-stamped with the British Lion; [and] guillemots habitually prospect their intended nesting sites from February onwards, and would soon discover that Hall's Ledge is exposed to the prevailing winds and swell".

He continued "The force of the latter is truly remarkable. During the recent visit of RFA Engadine, equipment competently secured on or near the ledge with pitons and ropes of breaking strains of thousands of pounds was carried away virtually without trace. Admittedly Rockall, like the rest of Britain, has suffered unusually bad weather this year, but the odds against six consecutive weeks of moderate conditions are long at any time".

By December 1973 Britain's Prime Minister Edward Heath was announcing energy saving measures - designed to achieve a 20% cut in electricity consumption - caused by an overtime ban in the coal industry, leading to pressure on oil supplies. Laurence Reed MP wanted to know if the Prime Minister was "aware that the oil that we shall discover in the Rockall-Hatton basin will make the difference between this country continuing to be reliant on external supplies and becoming entirely self-reliant ? Should not the Government be prepared to support the new technology which will be required to support this ?"

December 1973 also saw rumblings of discontent among Britain's neighbours. Norwegian fishermen wanted to know if Britains' granting of a 12 mile fishery limit around Rockall from 1 December was in accordance with international law. Meanwhile, surveys had shown oil and according to a newspaper report the UK Government had said it would be handing out oil licences "some time around next August". In Ireland "Garret Fitzgerald, the Minister for Foreign Affairs ... dropped heavy hints that any test drilling around the rock would be strongly resisted".

By 1974 Rockall was at the centre of a row about fishing. In March the Daily Express reported that "Norwegian, Irish and Icelandic fishermen are outraged at a British plan to declare a 50 mile protected fishing zone around the storm-swept rock".

The newspaper linked it to an expected "war of the islands" when the United Nations opened its Sea Conference in Caracas, Venezuela in June that year.

At the Caracas Conference the Canadian Government argued that however small or remote an island might be, the same principles of territorial sea and continental shelf should apply. As The Guardian noted, this legal argument "could vitally affect future British claims to offshore oil and fishing grounds within 200 miles of the Atlantic island of Rockall".

In a Commons Written Answer of 29 July 1974 Mr Ennals stated that after the incorporation of Rockall by the 1972 Island of Rockall Act, "No formal challenge" had been made to British sovereignty "and no competing claim".

September 1974 found Britain developing a new line of argument for its Rockall claim, as a "natural prolongation of the land mass of Scotland." This was of course rather bizarre as even in 1955, it was realised, in the words of The Times that September, that "the islet, which is composed entirely of a three-mineral granite-quartz rock … is geologically part of North America rather than Europe"

Britain however now asserted its exploitation rights over another 52,000 square miles of sea, through an Order in Council, using a 1972 Act on the continental shelf. The Foreign Office said that the area claimed, north of Rockall, "was not attributable to Rockall".

10 December 1974 brought a Foreign Ministry Note from Denmark to Britain, expressing "reservations" about its claim to sovereignty around Rockall. The Guardian reported from Copenhagen that Denmark was requesting negotiations "which would not prejudice the outcome of the Law of the Sea Conference due in Geneva in March" [1975]. While not directly claiming Rockall itself, Denmark argued that from a geological point of view, Rockall was a natural extension of the Faeroese continental shelf.

International bickering also stimulated the interest of the Hebrides. The Reverend Donald MacAulay, convenor of the Western Isles Authority, warned that European countries "should keep their eyes off the resources of the Western Isles" said The Scotsman newspaper. "Rockall", said the Reverend, "is part of the Outer Hebrides and it will be very difficult to move it from its present position for the convenience of any other country."

By January 1975 Rockall was again the subject of Parliamentary discussion. Mr Monro wanted to know whether it might be better to clarify the position "at the earliest opportunity" because "friction" was building up with Denmark. For the Government the Lord Advocate admitted that "this matter was canvassed, albeit inconclusively, at the Law of the Sea Conference in Caracas, and the conference has only been adjourned. Nevertheless in the Government's view Rockall generates its own continental shelf, and we are content to reply on that basis for the exploitation of oil and other purposes".

1975 saw renewed UN talks on the Law of the Sea. UK Minister Mr David Ennals admitted to The Scotsman that Britain had been non-committal on whether a 200 mile zone should be permitted but had now "rethought" its position and decided it should. As well as more fish, this would give Britain "vastly greater areas of seabed with potential mineral, oil and gas wealth than the existing continental shelf agreements".

In April Mr Don Crimin of the Irish delegation told a committee of the Conference in Geneva that Ireland disputed the UK's contention that Rockall was an island capable of generating a 200 mile fishery designation. Ireland was not yet directly disputing Britains claim to the actual rock but Irish Nationalists said that St Brednock the fisherman was there first. The Royal Irish Academy's claim of the 1860s might be an historical precedent but was it handed down to Britain or to Ireland ? Then there was the earlier, French expedition.

Mr Crimin appealed rather hopefully to "common sense". There was a need to define islands because otherwise they might get rights "totally out of proportion" to their importance or needs. "It is not in conformity with common sense", he added, "that a spur of rock elevated above high tide or an isolated islet ... which cannot be inhabited in normal circumstances should have an economic zone or even a territorial sea".

The Scotsman noted that if, on grounds of "natural prolongation", Britain did place an exclusive economic zone at 200 miles around Rockall, which was over 200 miles from the mainland, (and nearer Ireland if one ignores St Kilda) Ireland would lose 20,000 square miles of the Atlantic seabed. (Rockall is 289 miles from the nearest point on the Scottish mainland, Ardnamurchan Point).

By 17 April 1975 the Scotsman was reporting that the UK-Irish dispute over Rockall might have to go to arbitration, while from the talks in Geneva Mr Paul Bamela Engo of Cameroun, who was chairing the meeting, said cryptically "to what extent we are moving forward rather than sideways, I cannot say at this stage".

Rockall meanwhile, was busy. Hansard records that despite the Prime Minister repeatedly declining the suggestions of MPs to visit Rockall, on 19 July Britain's Lord Advocate did so, in his capacity as a Commissioner of Northern Lighthouses.

On 10 May 1977 Mr Marten asked Prime Minister James Callaghan if he would visit Rockall. No he wouldn't.

In January 1980, Dr Edmund Marshall MP asked what was the position over the Anglo-Irish Rockall negotiations. Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd said that "the question of delimitation of the continental shelf ... is still being discussed" with a further round of talks due 6 and 7 February.

May 1982 and Malcolm Rifkind was the Foreign Minister answering Rockall questions. Would the Union flag be raised there, John Biggs-Davison wanted to know. "A flag can withstand the weather conditions on Rockall for only a very short time" said Mr Rifkind knowledgeably. "A plaque was therefore placed on the rock in 1955. A new plaque was erected in 1971 and was still in position when the island was last visited. It will be checked and, if necessary, replaced when the light is next inspected, probably later this year".

The UK Government repeated its "valid claim" on Rockall on the basis of the criterion of natural prolongation, in the House of Commons on 12 July 1982.

The Law of the Sea negotiations ended with texts in 1982. The UK Government saw some parts, such as freedom of navigation, as to its advantage, and other parts, such as restricting deep sea mining, as to its disadvantage.

On 18 December 1984 the Government restated that Britain's claims for oil exploration purposes were based on the "criterion of natural prolongation". Boundaries to the continental shelf claims were "not yet established" with other countries and confidential discussions continued with Denmark, Iceland and Ireland.

The UK issued petroleum production licences for "deep water frontier areas of the Rockall and Faeroe troughs" in 1985.

[Currently S 1 (3) of the Continental Shelf Act 1964 allows the Crown to grant licenses for petroleum exploration on its continental shelf. Licences are granted under the Petroleum Production Act 1934, and the Petroleum (Production) (Seaward Areas) Regulations 1988.]

On 7 May 1985 Denmark staked a claim to 300,000 square kilometres of the Atlantic over the "Faeroe Rockall micro-content". The Financial Times noted that "Britain has already designated 50,000 sq. km and Ireland 80,000 sq. km of the same area". The Danes claimed that the seabed was a geological extension of the Faeroes.

Mr Uffe Elleman-Jensen told a press conference "this is not an unfriendly action towards Britain and Ireland" but Denmark claimed jurisdiction and any development of the seabed therefore required Danish permission. Denmark said it would now seek a negotiated settlement. Whereas Denmark did not challenge Britain's sovereignty over the rock of Rockall, it did challenge the 200 mile (fishing) EEZ based on Rockall.

The Danish case dismissed Rockall as a "cliff", uninhabited and without the rights that would accrue to a real island. "This is not a conflict, it is a disagreement" said Mr Elleman-Jensen "The Danish high seas fleet is not going there".

A few days later, on 10 May the Icelandic Government followed suit, serving notice that it claimed a 300 mile continental shelf stretching towards Ireland and Scotland. A statement delivered from the Icelandic Ambassador Mr Einar Benediktsson to the British Foreign Ministry was followed by promises of a reciprocal protest by the British. The Guardian reported that Iceland and Denmark's claims were "not concerned with territorial seas and fishing operations but with the resources of the continental shelf beneath, at depths of 1,000 feet and more."

On 23 May 1985 the UK Government announced a start to exploration in "frontier areas" with 80 offshore oil licences under the 9th Round. A report said the Government was "anxious for companies to gain experience of oil exploration in the more difficult areas. Oil companies say that almost all the big oil structures in the North Sea have been discovered.... 37 of the new licences are in the frontier areas [including] Rockall and Faeroes ..."

The Economist found a connection between the evolution of geological science and the shifting sands underlying British claims to the area. "A decade ago" it wrote on 25 May, "geologists were thrilled by the emergence of plate tectonics ... now politicians are calling on plate tectonics to support competing territorial claims to 300,000 square km of the North Atlantic Ocean that may contain lots of oil".

In 1972, found The Economist, "Britain hoped it had got away with a claim to a swathe of Atlantic waters by incorporating the far-flung and uninhabitable island of Rockall into the Scottish county of Inverness-shire. But the British claim is not alone. Denmark insists that plate tectonics show that the entire area is a geological entity called the Faeroes-Rockall micro-continent, a detached part of Europe separated from Britain and Iceland by a horse-shoe of deep water. The Danes dismiss Rockall as a "skerry", far too small to be rated as an island and used as the basis for a territorial claim. The official map used by Britain's energy department clearly shows that a politically-embarrassing trench known as the Rockall Trough separates Rockall from the British mainland. Britain stoutly maintains that the trough has no legal significance".

"Icelanders too", said The Economist, "are swotting up on plate tectonics". Iceland's volcanoes were visible manifestations of the plate activities and had created Rockall. "It follows, say the Icelanders, that the area beyond the floor of the plateau is tied to the mother country".

Lastly, The Economist reviewed Ireland's claim. This, it said, was "as scientifically un-imaginative as it is legally impeccable. It does not even mention plate tectonics: the Irish government simply draws a 200-mile line from its nearest bit of inhabited land and points out, triumphantly, that it embraces much of the disputed zone".

In Parliament the UK Government acknowledged on 13 June that "neighbouring states" had challenged it's sovereign rights to issue petroleum licences.

By a strange coincidence, early summer 1985 saw another British expedition to Rockall, this time with the express purpose of inhabiting it for two months if possible. Former Special Air Serviceman, paratrooper, survival expert and lone Atlantic sailor Tom Maclean reached the rock by fishing boat on a trip sponsored by the South of England firm Milbury Homes. He obtained planning permission from Comhairle Nan Eilean, the local authority for the Western Isles.

After first being swept into the sea by a heavy swell, he got "ashore" and spent the first night under a heavy tarpaulin in a survival suit. He then bolted his wooden survival box to the rock with a wind-powered electric drill. According to the Daily Telegraph "Mr Maclean says that his mission is purely an adventure without political significance". [If this was true, it was perhaps the first such trip to Rockall]. John Marshall, Planning Officer for Western Isles Council said in a report that the wooden shelter "contravened in the most extreme fashion the provisions of the council's approved policy on ribbon and sporadic development" but that if he stayed there for less than 28 days he would not need planning permission.

Mr Maclean stayed there from 26 May to 4 July, living in his wooden box bolted to the rock. According to The Times he spent his days "reading and painting a large Union Jack in full colour on top of the rock". The Observer found that Mr Maclean was offering "exclusive rights" to his story for £10,000.

Others were less convinced that the trip was apolitical. The Irish Rockall Trust objected to Mr Maclean's trip on grounds that it was a device to advance British territorial claims. The Telegraph pointed to the conflicting claims and commented "Far out in the Atlantic, west of Rockall, four nations are demonstrating that old style imperialism is alive and well".

On 31 May the Daily Telegraph published a photograph "not released by the Royal Navy at the time because Rockall ... was at the centre of a bitter territorial dispute" of two Royal Marines, a flag and a sentry box atop Rockall, taken ten years before in June 1975. They had been dropped there by HMS Tartar which was on a fishery patrol.

Maclean's trip encouraged an Irish firm called Kintrack from Eniskerry, County Wicklow, to apply for planning permission to Donegal County Council, to put up an Irish flag instead. According to a newspaper, Donegal's planning department said there was a "real possibility" that an application would be approved after consultations with the Irish Foreign Minister. "None of this has escaped the attention of the British Foreign Office" which said "We would take action of this kind very seriously indeed. I'm sure they remember the Falklands".

The Times devoted a lengthy leader to the issue "Around The Rugged Rocks: Assessing the Rockall Controversy", on 14 September 1985. It noted that a similar dispute between Canada and the United States had recently flared up over the North West Passage. At Rockall, it noted, the "area looks a likely place for oil. Exploration licences are in currency there, though not for any blocks whose possession is in dispute. The technology for tapping oil in those waters would have to be developed, and measured strikes, if any, are trade secrets. Meanwhile in another less publicized set of Anglo-Irish talks, the two governments have come closer to putting the delimitation of their overlapping claims out to arbitration. The more radical dispute with Denmark is being steered towards the Court of International Justice".

UNCLOS, thought The Times leader writer, would become "increasingly influential" in resolving these disputes, whether or not Britain signed it. Britain might find that UNCLOS would "knock out the argument that Rockall as an island generates a 200 mile exclusive economic zone or its own continental shelf, for it excludes from the class of islands, 'rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own'."

Using English so impenetrable that it was perhaps drafted by the Foreign Office itself, The Times suggested that even "the gallant Mr Tom Maclean who hung on by his fingernails for forty days" cannot "negate the presumption of that qualification". Fortunately there was another "string to Britain's bow ... Scotland's continental shelf". But "there is a possible snag here too in the shape of the Rockall Trough to a depth of more than 3,000 metres, lying between the British Isles and the Rockall plateau". Its floor "is thought to be oceanic crust" which "gives the Danes an outside chance with their microcontinental theory".

The Times roundly concluded: "If the matter comes to court the quiet science of geomorphology will achieve new notoriety. And if the judgement goes the wrong way Britain's (and Ireland's) presentation of its case will be seen to be 200 million years out of date".

November 1988 saw something of a breakthrough in Anglo-Irish talks on sea territory, though the outcome left many more confused than they were before. Writing from Dublin for the Financial Times, Kieran Cooke reported: "relations between Dublin and London blow hot and cold but yesterday the bonhomie was almost overpowering as Sir Geoffery Howe, the British Foreign Secretary, arrived in the Irish capital for a day of talks. There was hardly a frisson of friction as Sir Geoffery signed an agreement with Mr Brian Lenihan, his ebullient opposite number, on the division of the continental shelf between Britain and Ireland".

'This is a victory for both sides' said the elliptical Sir Geoffery. Mr Lenihan said, "Britain has yielded us waters. It is an excellent agreement from our point of view". The press was obviously confused by the complexities of seabed boundaries. "What about the sea around Northern Ireland" asked an Irish journalist. "What about Rockall" asked a man from London, obviously a keen listener to the shipping forecast. Ah, said Sir Geoffery, these particular areas were not covered. "This agreement does not determine what it does not determine" said Sir Geoffery. "It cannot deal with what it does not deal" he added, warming to his task.

According to the FT Mr Lenihan explained that Britain and Ireland "had managed after 17 meetings, to divide the Irish Sea and areas of the north-west Atlantic, thus precluding other troublesome claims by Iceland and Denmark". Rockall was not covered. "No one seemed to care" said the FT report. An Irish note explained opaquely, "the current position is that, given that Rockall is no longer used as a measuring point, its very existence is immaterial insofar as delimitation is concerned".

David Hearst of the Guardian was equally puzzled. "After at least 700 years of dispute" he said, the UK and Ireland had reached an historic agreement. The new border "starts 500 miles out into the Irish Sea, exists only on the seabed and in the minds of some very speculative and hardy oil explorers, and in the true spirit of Anglo-Irish harmony resolves all territorial issues ... except the two most important ones - Northern Ireland and Rockall".

Sir Geoffery and Mr Lenihan were, he felt "confident in the knowledge that the Agreement and Delimitation of the Continental Shelf which they signed, remains secure from awkward questions. The reason was that few at the signing could fathom it". Sir Geoffery was "forthright" that "Rockall plays no role in this decision". Hearst noted: "Accordingly the new frontier goes right through it ..." leaving Rockall "as divided as ever ... claimed by Britain, Ireland, Iceland and Denmark but it actually belongs geologically to Canada".

May 1991 brought a Lloyds List report of BP drilling in areas previously disputed between Britain and Ireland. The first to be drilled in the 5th Round of licences, BP started a 72 day drilling with the Ocean Alliance on block 132/15 about 130km west of Barra. At 707m depth it was also the most westerly drilled under British licences and was a "tight" well, with the firms' results revealed only to the government.

Two wells had been drilled by BP in the Rockall Basin, and it had 4000km of seismic data including 400km obtained in 1990.

In August 1992 two Donegal based businessmen, the Gibbon brothers, announced their intention to spend 24 hours on Rockall to claim it for Ireland. Their idea was to paint one of the rock faces with the Irish tricolour. The Times said that their visit would follow those of UK Fishery Vessels who "raise the Union Jack and polish the brass plaque". The UK Foreign Office said "I think the Irish would like to have it, but there is no question over British sovereignty. The claim was ratified in 1955 and has been re-asserted regularly ever since".

In January 1994 Irish academic Dr Clive Symmons of the Trinity College Law School published a book on Ireland and maritime law and highlighted the fact that the Rockall issue was unresolved. Dr Symmons pointed out that if Rockall was not capable of generating a 200 mile EEZ, then the European Union would be effectively deprived of a huge fisheries area. According to the Irish Times, "the problem would become even more acute if and when the EU Member States' 200 mile fishery zones are converted into EEZs where seabed rights - as distinct from 'water column' rights such as fisheries pertain".

In March 1994 a British fisheries vessel HMS Orkney arrested the Icelandic-owned fishing boat the Rex for alleged fishing in disputed waters near Rockall (other reports said the Fisheries Protection Vessel was the Norna).

Unfortunately the 600-ton ship turned out to be registered in Cyprus. Nicosia, said The Times, was "bemused". The skipper was Faeroese. On 23 March the skipper, Elrand Olson 42, was fined £12,500 while still denying that he had done anything wrong.

A second boat, the Atlantic Hope with a Faeroese skipper but registered in Belize, had its catch impounded. The law used was a part of the Fisheries Limits Act of 1976 which forbids entering an area for a purpose not recognized by international law. The Scotsman commented that "by the end of the year a UN Convention - if ratified by the UK - is expected to scrap the fisheries limit around uninhabited islands like Rockall".

Who does the UK Government think is responsible for Rockall ? According to a Parliamentary Answer of 11 June 1990, "Rockall is part of the Western Isles Islands area. It forms part of the Crown Estates". The responsibilities of the Secretary of State for Scotland "extend to Rockall". The islet comes under the Leverburgh ward of the Western Isles Council.

The UK Government continues to maintain a fairly opaque interpretation of the status of Rockall in international law. When asked (on 11 July 1990) by Lord Kennet whether the 12 mile territorial sea round Rockall is recognised as such by the United States, the European Community or other adjacent states and whether the claim is in accordance with UNCLOS, Lord Trefgarne replied: "The 12 nautical mile territorial sea around Rockall is consistent with the terms of the Law of the Sea Convention and with rules of customary international law. We have no reason to believe this position is not recognised by the international community in general, although it is not recognised by the Republic of Ireland".

The negotiations dragged on. What was the outcome of the recent talks held between Britain and Iceland over the Hatton-Rockall area, Lord Kennet wanted to know in June 1991. "It was agreed that further meetings would be held" said the Earl of Caithness for the Government.

On June 20 1994 the UK announced that it would accede to UNCLOS - although with no date.

In December 1994, former Scottish Secretary Lord Campbell of Croy - who had steered the Rockall Act - wanted to know if the UK planned to issue oil and gas exploration licences for the Rockall area. For the government Earl Ferrers said the closing round for nominations was March 8 1995. Decisions on offering blocks for licences would be taken depending on what areas oil companies nominated.

Lord Campbell suggested using weddings to strengthen the British claim, as "experts in international law" had suggested that a wedding "or even more, a birth" could help make it British. No one however should try this as "even seagulls find it difficult to maintain a perch". Earl Ferrers replied that sovereignty didn't depend on human life but that there were links to the geology of Scotland. He added: "Anyone who tried to have their marriage on Rockall needs to have their head examined".

Ireland opened its claimed area on the Rockall Trough for licensing in 1994 but closed it to encourage more seismic testing during 1995.

November 1995 saw Richard Page, then Junior Energy Minister, opening 275 blocks in 68 tranches for licensing under the 17th offshore licensing round. "We are entering real frontier territory with some of the tranches nearly as far west as Rockall. It is a reflection of the potential of the UK continental shelf that after 30 years of exploration, there are still exciting new areas to be searched", Mr Page announced .

41 of the tranches he said "are in the Rockall Trough, located east of Rockall and to the south-west of the recent discoveries in the West of Shetland area. The trough is an area where little exploration has taken place but which has considerable potential for significant discoveries." The round aimed to "continue the development of our oil and gas resources into the next century". 691 blocks had been nominated by 19 companies or consortia under the round as a whole, which includes other sea areas around the UK.

In March 1996 the Irish Department of Transport, Energy and Communications announced a new petroleum licensing round covering 150,000 sq. km in the Rockall Trough area in 615 full and 35 part blocks. The Irish Government gave any discoveries a special 25% Corporation Tax level on profits. The area was bigger than Ireland itself.

Frank Fraser, writing in The Scotsman noted that one oil find had already been made in waters closer to shore and "initial indications suggest the Rockall Trough is part of the same Atlantic margin geological trend where the Foinaven and Schiehallion fields have been found in UK waters".

Fraser reported that oil analysts Smith-Rea Associates of Canterbury said that despite harsh conditions "interest in the area has been heightened by rapid developments in deep water technology" and "it will be surprising if the oil industry does not commit substantial resources to the more prospective parts of the area", using tankers to remove any hydrocarbons produced. Norway's Statoil had taken over Ireland's Aran Energy and was completing a complete technical review of the area.

July 1996 came and Britain was still undecided on the UN Law of the Sea Convention which had come into force in 1994. With the Commission on Disputes about to be set up, Professors Nicholas Gaskell and Christine Chinkin, and Dr Ralph Beddard and Michael Chinkin of the Institute of Maritime Law in Southampton all criticised British delay saying "nothing is to be gained ... least of all for Rockall fisheries". The Convention, they pointed out, had now been accepted by over 100 countries including Germany and France, China and Japan.

On 16 July in the Commons Minister Sir Nicholas Bonsor maintained that Rockall was "an island within the meaning of article 121(1) of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and has a territorial limit of 12 miles." However, measuring British fishing limits from Rockall was "believed to be inconsistent with the provision in article 121(3) of UNCLOS that rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no economic zone". Britain would accede to UNCLOS but timing remained "under review".

The 21 judges who will settle disputes under the Convention were finally elected in August 1996. Based in Hamburg Germany, it is now their task to examine legal conflicts such as, quite possibly, that over Rockall and the seas around it. The Tribunal reports to the International Seabed Authority. 104 countries had ratified it at the time. The judges must seek an "equitable participation" in resources under the high seas, beyond territorial limits or EEZs (Exclusive Economic Zones).

Britain and the US could not take part in electing the judges as they had not signed the Convention. However, somewhat unusually, a British judge was proposed by the French Government. As a result David Anderson, "a veteran of the protracted law of the Sea negotiations ... second legal adviser to the Foreign Office" was elected. The reason for French concern to see a British legal representative appointed is not known. At the time, Britain was one of the only countries in the world to support France in that country's continued testing of nuclear weapons in the Pacific.

While Britain thought the Treaty was "a good thing" a Foreign Office spokesperson told Lloyds List, the Minister responsible, Baroness Chalker wanted more time to consider the implications for fisheries. Pressure from Scottish fishing organisations over the disputed Rockall sea area was blamed for delaying Britain's accession to the treaty, possibly until autumn 1997.

The biggest seabed survey ever conducted along the Irish Continental Shelf was reported complete in September 1996. Surveyors found unusual features including carbonate mounds - whole ecosystems based on methane - and 15 submarine canyons along the edge of the Rockall Trough.

3 February 1997 saw Lord Kennet once again asking when the Government would ratify UNCLOS, and being told by Baroness Chalker of Wallasey for the Government that it would inform Parliament "as soon as a decision had been taken".

Rockall Today

The status of the UK claim to Rockall and its surrounding natural resources remains in considerable doubt, as do those of other nations.

In 1997 the Durham University International Boundaries Research Unit published a comprehensive analysis of the conflicting claims and their legal bases.

The report 'Competing Claims To Sovereignty And Marine Jurisdiction in the Rockall Plateau Area' , which was commissioned by Greenpeace in September 1996, stated "although other disputes may make more headlines, the dispute over rights to maritime space in the north east Atlantic Ocean involving Denmark, Eire, Iceland and the UK is almost unique in its scale and complexity".

The report points out that the Law of the Sea may remain of central importance in resolving the disputes. Denmark, Eire and Iceland all signed the Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) on 10 December 1982, the day the final text was opened for signature. Iceland ratified in June 1985, Ireland in June 1996, Denmark has yet to ratify and the UK yet to sign. On the other hand Denmark and the UK are party to the previous 1958 Geneva convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone while the other two states are not.

The question of what constitutes "natural prolongation", now the UK's principal criterion for claiming seabed around Rockall, is, says the report, likely to be a demanding task for the UN-convened Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

The report details the exceedingly tangled web of legal and political factors that have so far prevented the disputes from being settled. There are different arguments and interests in play for fisheries and for mineral (oil, gas etc) resources, for territory and territorial seas, for the water column and for the seabed beneath it. "In general" the report says, "the overlap between the continental shelf claims represents a scramble for that part of the continental shelf which lies more than 200nm from all four states. When the claims are superimposed there are two large areas of trilateral overlap (Denmark/Iceland/UK and Denmark/Eire/Iceland) and three areas of bilateral overlap (Denmark/Iceland, Eire/Iceland, and Iceland/UK).

The UK's claim for a 200 mile fishery zone around Rockall is, the report suggests "in trouble" because that concept did not exist prior to LOSC and Rockall fails the criterion for being an island. The same may be said, it notes, for the UK's use of St Kilda and Sule Skerry as basepoints.

As to continental shelf claims, only Iceland has so far formally defined the extent of its claim. The UK for example has regularly increased its claim without putting a formal limit to it. As the report notes: "The core of the problem is not that one or more of the states has ignored the rules of international law but that each state uses different criteria to define areas of the continental margin that "naturally" pertains to it on geological and geomorphological grounds".

A 1978 review 'Rockall and the limits of national jurisdiction of the UK' by E. D. Brown is regarded by authors of the 1997 Durham study as the best available work on the seabed geology. This review states that "There……seems to be a general agreement among geologists that the Rockall Plateau forms part of a microcontinent and that it probably extends northwards into the Faroe Block".

It notes that whether this resolves much also depends on definitions of 'natural prolongation' or 'continental margin'. In the Rockall Trough there is evidence for several layers of oceanic crust and overlying sediments, providing additional scope for arguments over exactly who these 'belong' to.

Within the next ten years Eire must define the limits to its continental shelf (under Annex II of LOSC) and with Iceland, submit its claim to the UN Commission. Legally that could begin to force a resolution.

Greenpeace however, believes that while a strategy of joint development - or a "carve up" as it would commonly be known - is the option most likely to be pursued by all these countries, it is also the wrong one.

In a report published in June 1997, Greenpeace argues instead for joint non-development.

Its reasoning is simple.

On the one hand, there are many disputes of this kind around the world (at least 15, perhaps 30), in some cases leading to armed conflict. In the pursuit of peace and security, joint non-development, as in Antarctica, would be preferable.

On the other, there is no need to develop these resources, indeed, in the case of fossil fuels, there are moral, political and practical reasons why they should remain undeveloped, most notably because industrial countries should be leading a process to halt further expansion of fossil fuel reserves in order to meet climate limits, not expanding them further and making the necessary phase-out more difficult.

Greenpeace has pressed this case with the past UK Prime Minister John Major, with Tony Blair, and with Foreign Secretaries Malcolm Rifkind and Robin Cook. The correspondence with the Foreign Office has focused particularly on the question of "natural prolongation" and the nature of the earth's crust beneath the Rockall Trough.

While the UK Government has yet to respond positively, an interesting development occurred when Heinz Rothermund, Managing Director of Shell Exploration, acknowledged the basic logic of the Greenpeace case in May 1997, saying:

'It is important to recognize, however, that the specific attack by Greenpeace in particular, on oil and gas developments in the Atlantic Margin, accompanied by the usual exaggerated claims about last wilderness and environmental devastation, with emotional references to whales and endangered species, also raises a key question. 'In how far is it sensible to explore for and develop new hydrocarbon reserves given that the atmosphere may not be able to cope with the greenhouse gases that will emanate from the utilisation of the hydrocarbon reserves discovered already'. Undoubtedly, there is a dilemma and I would now like to spend some time analysing it."

The Durham study says while there has been little active challenge of Britain's claims to Rockall itself, there is no indication that the other countries actively recognize the claim. "It seems unlikely that there will be any significant moves to break the deadlock over the Rockall Plateau in the near future. Should exploitable oil reserves be found in the area however, this can be expected to change quite quickly". It notes that this is what happened further north on the Atlantic Frontier where there is a "new urgency" to UK-Denmark negotiations over the median line between Scotland and the Faeroes.

Rockall inspires all sorts of emotions and ambitions. Ireland even has an organisation solely devoted to making the rock Irish: the Rockall Trust led by Dublin Alderman Sean D Dublin Bay Rockall Loftus (who has changed his name to pursue the issue).

Attempts to visit, to claim it and the waters around it, have mirrored the priorities of the age: for exploration and for the spread of religion and civilisation, for empire building, for scientific curiosity, for crude nationalism, for war, for cold war defence, for distant fleet fishing, and for the culmination of the fossil fuel age.

The UK Government has clearly been financing and encouraging oil exploration on the Atlantic Frontier, including the Rockall Trough and Plateau, since at least 1969. In 1997 for example the major activities of the British Geological Survey (BGS) include a "major multidisciplinary study of the Rockall Margin by BGS and a consortium of oil companies".

"Because of the the industry funding there are currently confidentiality constraints on these data because of their commercial relevance."

The UK still provides very generous tax breaks which encourage such oil development. A Greenpeace report "Stop Stoking the Fire: Will Labour End Subsidies To Fossil Fuels" notes that the lax UK offshore tax regime has allowed oil companies to begin extracting oil from the Atlantic Frontier, which was previously considered to be uneconomic. The benefits of this fiscal regime were made clear by oil industry analysts Smith Rea and Energy Information Services in a study of the potential for the development of oil and gas fields in the Rockall Trough. In the report they advise the oil industry that:

"The British tax regime is generally considered to be very favourable. New fields approved for development since 16 March 1993 are exempt from Petroleum Revenue Tax (PRT) and are only subject to Corporation Tax. Government Royalties are not chargeable on new fields approved for development after 1April 1982.

Salient features of the regime are the following: