Small-Scale Fishers, Changing Borders: The Case of San Andrés Archipelago (Colombia) and the International Court of Justice

Abstract

Small-scale fisheries are not a fixed scale in terms of governance and governability. While they may be small by their individual size, small-scale fisheries are strongly interconnected to higher levels of governance. This interconnectedness makes them vulnerable to external influences and shocks, which in turn affect their governability. This chapter calls for an analysis of scales beyond the local community in order to grasp all the complexity, diversity and dynamics of interactions at multiple levels. As an illustration, the case of small-scale fisheries in the San Andres archipelago on the Caribbean coast of Colombia will be looked at. Due to the International Court of Justice decision over boundary dispute between Colombia and Nicaragua in 2012, small-scale fishers in this area lost access to their traditional fishing ground. The chapter examines consequences of this decision using the governability assessment framework and provides lessons about small-scale fisheries governance when spatial scale is a critical issue.