Much of the coast of Iceland is similar to that of Norway, with
abundant deep fjords and offshore skerries. The southern coast,
however, from segments 19-30 (see Fig. 5.11 ), is remarkably smooth.
Although there are some indentations, the southern coast would not
qualify as deeply indented because the indentations are relatively
shallow and are not sufficient in number to create a “cut into”
appearance. In addition, the offshore islands cannot be termed either
“fringing” or “in the immediate vicinity” because they are not spatially
related to each other, they move in a perpendicular direction away
from the coast, and they lie further than the distance of the territorial
sea from the coast. Thus, the use of straight baselines cannot be
justified in this locality. Segments 19-22 and 28-30 are extremely long
and consequentially exorbitant. Since the length of segment 29-30
alone is 71.53 n.m., the increase in continental shelf area and exclusive
economic zone gained from this claim is significant.
