July 12, 2024 — In 2012, British and French scallop fishers clashed in a series of violent encounters, dubbed the “great scallop war” in the press. The conflict did not escalate beyond rammed boats and thrown rocks, but it heightened tensions between the two governments, and when Brexit went into effect in 2020, a majority of French fishers were banned from operating in British territorial waters. This year, after the United Kingdom banned bottom trawling to protect fragile marine habitats, the French government protested vehemently and threatened to respond with punitive trade measures. Clashes are happening in other parts of the world, too. In 2022, when a U.S. Coast Guard cutter approached to inspect a Chinese squid vessel near Ecuador—following established legal protocols—the Chinese ship used aggressive maneuvers to avoid being boarded. In the meantime, dozens of other vessels fled without being inspected.

In a world consumed with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East—and a potential conflict over Taiwan—these incidents may seem insignificant. But although they may fly under the radar, disputes over fisheries have the potential to turn into larger conflicts and to exacerbate existing ones, just as disputes over oil, water, and grain have done in the past. Fisheries are finite natural resources that provide sustenance to billions of people; seafood constitutes nearly one-fifth of global consumption of animal protein. Its products are among the world’s most highly traded food commodities. The fisheries sector employs hundreds of millions of people and fuels the economies of many developing countries and small island states. And the industry already faces growing pressure as overfishing, poor management, and climate change degrade fish stocks across the planet. Rising ocean temperatures alone are expected to push nearly one in four local fish populations to cross an international boundary in the coming decade, reshuffling access to this critical resource and incentivizing risky illegal fishing and labor abuse in the sector. It is not hard to imagine how, in this context, a fish-related fight could spiral.

In fact, skirmishes are already happening with alarming frequency. Fights over fish are not new: during the Cold War, for instance, countries that were otherwise aligned clashed frequently over fisheries. In 1979, Canada seized U.S. fishing boats in a dispute about albacore tuna, and the Cod Wars of the 1970s saw Iceland and the United Kingdom clash over fishing rights in the North Atlantic. But the frequency of confrontation over fishery resources has increased 20-fold since 1970, and the rapid growth of fishing fleets able to travel to distant waters has further raised the risk of serious clashes.

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