Cod Wars Cod Wars The Cod Wars (, "the cod wars", or "Landhelgisstríðin", "the wars for the territorial waters") were a series of confrontations between the United Kingdom and Iceland on fishing rights in the North Atlantic. Each of the disputes ended with an Icelandic victory. The Third Cod War concluded in 1976, with a highly favourable agreement for Iceland; the United Kingdom conceded to a Icelandic exclusive fishery zone after threats that Iceland would withdraw from NATO, which would have forfeited NATO's access to most of the GIUK gap, a critical anti-submarine warfare during the Cold War. As a result, British
Harold Innis and the cod fishery World from Spain." Innis shows how the cod fishery was interwoven economically with the slave trade and international markets for such other products as sugar, tobacco and rum. He argues that rivalry between the British and the colonists in New England led to the American Revolution. While his study of the fur trade focused on the continental interior with its interlocking rivers and lakes, "The Cod Fisheries" looks outward at global trade and empire showing the far-reaching effects of one staple product, both on imperial centres and on marginal colonies such as Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New England. Biographer, John