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 100 miles (160 km) 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".

In the early 1960s, France had lost almost all of its colonies on the African continent and consequently lost maritime areas where it exploited and dominated fishing. These losses, especially in Mauritania, put the French stock of lobsters in jeopardy.

With the shortage, there was increased interest from fishermen at the fishing port of Camaret, on the northwest coast of France, in the Brazilian Northeast and the lobsters that inhabited there. The French then sent a delegation to Recife to conduct research on lobster nurseries. In March 1961, the authorization was issued and was valid for 180 days; however, only three vessels could be sent, following a French request. Moreover, the Brazilian government required representatives from the Brazilian Navy to board as inspectors. Thus, it didn't take long for the reports to show that instead of three, there were four fishing vessels in action. Furthermore, there was no research being conducted. The four boats were fishing and intended to take the lobsters to Europe.

In November of the same year, France requested authorization again, now with João Goulart as the nation's president, as Jânio Quadros had resigned a month earlier. The authorization was granted, and as before, the French continued fishing and were expelled from the Brazilian maritime territory.^{[clarification needed]} From then on, vessels began to be seized – but were soon released without further consequences.

Since local fishermen complained that large boats were coming from France to catch lobster off the state of Pernambuco, Brazilian Admiral Arnoldo Toscano ordered two corvettes to sail to the area of the French fishing boats. Seeing that the fishermen's claim was justifiable, the captain of the Brazilian vessel then demanded for the French boats to recede to deeper water and to leave the continental shelf to smaller Brazilian vessels.

Throughout 1962, a diplomatic dispute between the two countries ensued. Brazil claimed that the lobsters were in the exclusive economic zone^{[anachronism]} of the country, while France relied on the 1958 Geneva Convention, which established guidelines for high seas fishing, even though neither country had signed the convention. Early in the year, the Brazilian corvette Ipiranga seized the fishing vessel Cassiopée, 10 miles off the northeast coast.

During the negotiations to establish a form of modus vivendi regarding the crustacean, France argued that the lobster moved from one place to another by jumping and, therefore, should be considered as a fish and not a resource of the continental shelf. According to Commander Paulo de Castro, of the Brazilian Navy, the argument was weak and, ironically, he said: