Lobster War

The Lobster War (also known as the Lobster Operation; Portuguese: Guerra da Lagosta; French: Conflit de la langouste) was a dispute over spiny lobsters that occurred from 1961 to 1963 between Brazil and France. The Brazilian government refused to allow French fishing vessels to catch spiny lobsters 160 kilometres (100 mi) off Brazil's northeastern coast by arguing that lobsters "crawl along the continental shelf". The French maintained that "lobsters swim" and so they could be caught by any fishing vessel from any country. Although the historical incident of coercive diplomacy may have taken place long before the drafting of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the dispute ended with the signing of an agreement on 10 December 1964 that granted to 26 French ships the right to fish for a period no longer than five years if they delivered to Brazilian fishermen a certain amount of profit from their fishing activities in the so-called "designated areas".