Serranilla Bank ( and ''Placer de la Serranilla'') is a partially submerged

reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral, or similar relatively stable material lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic component, abiotic (non-living) processes such as deposition (geol ...

, with small uninhabited

islets An islet ( ) is generally a small island. Definitions vary, and are not precise, but some suggest that an islet is a very small, often unnamed, island with little or no vegetation to support human habitation. It may be made of rock, sand and ...

, in the western

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...

. It is situated about northeast of Punta Gorda,

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

, and roughly southwest of

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

. The closest neighbouring land feature is

Bajo Nuevo Bank Bajo Nuevo Bank, also known as the Petrel Islands (), is a small, uninhabited reef with some small grass-covered islets, located in the western Caribbean Sea at , with a lighthouse on Low Cay at . The closest neighboring land feature is Serrani ...

, located to the east. Serranilla Bank was first shown on Spanish maps in 1510. It is administered by

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

as part of the department of San Andrés and Providencia. An official map of Colombian borders, with treaty dates. The reef is subject to a sovereignty dispute involving

and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. A previous claim by

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...

was resolved in favor of Colombia when the two countries approved a treaty establishing their maritime boundaries. Jamaica's claim was resolved when it established a joint regime area with overlapping maritime boundaries in 1993, but acknowledging Colombian control of Serranilla and Bajo Nuevo banks. In 2012, in regards to Nicaraguan claims to the islands, the

International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...

(ICJ) upheld Colombia's sovereignty over the bank. However, the judgment does not analyze or mention the U.S. claim over the reef.

Geography

Serranilla Bank is a former

atoll An atoll () is a ring-shaped island, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim. Atolls are located in warm tropical or subtropical parts of the oceans and seas where corals can develop. Most ...

, now a mostly submerged

carbonate A carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid, (), characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, a polyatomic ion with the formula . The word "carbonate" may also refer to a carbonate ester, an organic compound containing the carbonate group ...

platform consisting of shallow

environments. It is about in length and in width, covering an area of over , almost entirely under water. Three small cays and two rocks emerge above the water to form the bank's islands. These are West Breaker, Middle Cay, East Cay, Beacon Cay, and Northeast Breaker.Sanandresislas
– description and photographs of Serranilla Bank. They are largely barren, with sparse vegetation of bushes and some trees. Many

shipwreck A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. It results from the event of ''shipwrecking'', which may be intentional or unintentional. There were approximately thre ...

s are located in its vicinity. The bank lacks

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in group ...

s and has minimal sediment cover. Accretion of the bank is not keeping up with the rise in sea level. The southeastern portion is covered mainly by hardgrounds, while the rest of the bank is mostly covered by thin

Halimeda ''Halimeda'' is a genus of green macroalgae. The algal body (thallus) is composed of calcified green segments. Calcium carbonate is deposited in its tissues, making it inedible to most herbivores. However one species, ''Halimeda tuna'', was desc ...

sediments. Beacon Cay is the largest

islet An islet ( ) is generally a small island. Definitions vary, and are not precise, but some suggest that an islet is a very small, often unnamed, island with little or no vegetation to support human habitation. It may be made of rock, sand and/ ...

in the Bank. It is overbuilt with small military facilities, which house a small rotating garrison of Colombian naval personnel. There is a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lens (optics), lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Ligh ...

on a

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

ledge in the southwest approach to the bank. It is a tall skeletal tower built atop a 3-storey crew residence. The lamp emits a focal plane beam of light as two white flashes every 20 seconds. The current lighthouse was first erected in 1982, and was reconstructed in May 2008 by the Colombian

Ministry of Defence A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...

. It is currently maintained by the

Colombian Navy The Colombian Navy, officially the Colombian National Navy (), also known as the ''"Armada Nacional"'' or just the ''"Armada"'' in Spanish, is the naval branch of the Military Forces of Colombia, military forces of Colombia. The Navy is responsi ...

and overseen by the state's Maritime Authority.

History

The Serranilla Bank was first shown on Spanish maps in 1510 as '' Placer de la Serranilla''. It was mentioned by Louis-Michel Aury, whose ship was shipwrecked on it in 1820. In later history, it has been the subject of conflicting claims by several

sovereign state A sovereign state is a State (polity), state that has the highest authority over a territory. It is commonly understood that Sovereignty#Sovereignty and independence, a sovereign state is independent. When referring to a specific polity, the ter ...

s; in most cases, the dispute stems from attempts by a state to expand its

exclusive economic zone An exclusive economic zone (EEZ), as prescribed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is an area of the sea in which a sovereign state has exclusive rights regarding the exploration and use of marine natural resource, reso ...

over the surrounding seas. Between 1982 and 1986, Colombia maintained a formal agreement with

, which granted regulated fishing rights to Jamaican vessels within the

territorial waters Territorial waters are informally an area of water where a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potentially the extended continental shelf ( ...

of Serranilla Bank and nearby Bajo Nuevo Bank. In November 1993, the two states agreed upon a maritime delimitation treaty establishing a "Joint Regime Area" to cooperatively manage and exploit living and non-living resources in designated waters between the two banks. However, the territorial waters immediately surrounding the cays themselves were excluded from the zone of joint-control, as Colombia considers these areas to be part of her coastal waters. The agreement came into force in March 1994.

formerly claimed all the islands on its

continental shelf A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an islan ...

, covering an area of over 50,000 km² in the Caribbean Sea, including the Serranilla Bank and all islands associated with the San Andrés and Providencia archipelagoes. It had persistently pursued this claim against Colombia in the

(ICJ), filing cases in both 2001 and 2007. Nicaragua formally accepted the ICJ's 2012 ruling of Colombian sovereignty in a 2014

constitutional amendment A constitutional amendment (or constitutional alteration) is a modification of the constitution of a polity, organization or other type of entity. Amendments are often interwoven into the relevant sections of an existing constitution, directly alt ...

. The

' claim was made in 1879 and 1880 under the Guano Islands Act by James W. Jennett. lists Serranilla Bank as an insular area under U.S. sovereignty. Most claims made by the U.S. over the guano islands in this region were officially renounced in a treaty with Colombia dated September 1972. But whether or not Serranilla Bank was included in the agreement is disputed. There is no specific mention of the feature in the treaty, and as per Article 7 of the treaty, only matters specifically mentioned in the document are subject to it. The U.S. considers the reef an

insular area In the law of the United States, an insular area is a U.S.-associated jurisdiction that is not part of a U.S. state or the Washington, D.C., District of Columbia. This includes fourteen Territories of the United States, U.S. territories adminis ...

claimed Serranilla Bank as part of its national territory in Article 10 of its

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these pri ...

.Republic of Honduras: Political Constitution of 1982 through 2005 reforms
/ref> In 1986, it agreed upon a

maritime boundary A maritime boundary is a conceptual division of Earth's water surface areas using physiographical or geopolitical criteria. As such, it usually bounds areas of exclusive national rights over mineral and biological resources,VLIZ Maritime Boun ...

demarcation with Colombia that excluded Honduras of any control over the bank or its surrounding waters. The

ratification Ratification is a principal's legal confirmation of an act of its agent. In international law, ratification is the process by which a state declares its consent to be bound to a treaty. In the case of bilateral treaties, ratification is usuall ...

of this boundary on 20 December 1999 proved to be controversial within Honduras, as it ensured that the state implicitly recognized Colombia's sovereignty over the claimed territory. At that time, Nicaragua disputed Honduras' legal right to hand over these areas before the ICJ.Nicaragua-Honduras Territorial Dispute
De Mar, Rebecca.

American University The American University (AU or American) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Its main campus spans 90-acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, in the Spri ...

, June 2002. Despite the agreement with Colombia, the Honduran government has not officially renounced the claim in the Constitution.

Notable fauna

In 1952, Serranilla Bank was the site of the last sighting of the now-extinct Caribbean monk seal.

References

External links

* – aerial image of Serranilla Bank * Photos of the islands on Panoramio

{{Authority control Atolls of the North Atlantic Ocean Atolls of Colombia Atolls of the United States Caribbean islands of Colombia Disputed islands Insular areas of the United States International territorial disputes of the United States Caribbean islands claimed under the Guano Islands Act Islands of the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands of the West Caribbean Reefs of the Atlantic Ocean Territorial disputes of Colombia Territorial disputes of Honduras Territorial disputes of Nicaragua Uninhabited Caribbean islands of the United States Uninhabited islands of Colombia Uninhabited islands of Honduras Uninhabited islands of Nicaragua Colombia–Honduras relations Colombia–United States relations Colombia–Nicaragua relations

Geography

History

Notable fauna

See also

References

External links