ABSTRACT
Legislation with respect to Channel Island fisheries has either been in the form of extended Acts of Parliament, or by agreements between the UK and France, binding the Islands only after their approval. Fishing in the Channel Islands has existed since earliest times: indeed, between 1100 and 1300, it was Guernsey's main source of wealth. An Anglo-French Fisheries Convention signed in Paris on August 2, 1839, defined and regulated the limits of oyster and other fisheries off British and French coasts. The most bitter French complaints were directed against the British fishermen dredging for oysters off the French coast. Fishery Limits Act was extended to the Channel Islands, but the French refused beforehand to relinquish their fishing rights in the mer commune, as laid down in the 1951 Fisheries Agreement. The chapter provides obstacles both to marine resource management and maritime boundary drawing in the area lying between the Channel Islands and the French coast.
