Bangladesh/Myanmar maritime dispute Judgment

Dispute concerning delimitation of the maritime boundary between Bangladesh and Myanmar in the Bay of Bengal (Bangladesh/Myanmar)

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Guyana submitted its Continental Shelf claim

By Denis Scott Chabrol

Wednesday, 07 September 2011 1615

Guyana on Wednesday announced that it has asked the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf to extend the South American nation's continental shelf in the hope of tapping into oil and gas reserves there.

Foreign Minister, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett said the submission made Tuesday seeks to add another 150 nautical miles from the 200 nautical mile outer limit of Guyana’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

Lebanon boundary delimitation issues with Israel

Aug 4, 2011 7:20 PM GMT+0400
Reporter: Nayla Razzouk in Amman, Jordan, at nrazzouk2@bloomberg.net.

Editor: Stephen Voss at sev@bloomberg.net

Lebanon’s parliament approved the demarcation of the country’s maritime border amid a dispute with Israel over the drilling for natural gas and oil in the Mediterranean Sea.

Professor Crawford tells us about his role in Romaia/Ukraine trial

de Crina Boros HotNews.ro

16 martie 2010, 13:17 

Professor James Crawford has been awarded a Romanian national order as “Knight” last year for helping Romania to win the trial addressing the Black Sea maritime border with Ukraine in Hague. Originally from Australia, he teaches International Law at Cambridge University and he’s a member of the English and Australian Bars. Professor Crawford recently had the time to tell us about the trial and about the role he played.

R: You contributed to Romania’s verdict in Hague. What was your role in the trial?

James Crawford: I was one of the five external lawyers working for Romania. The other three included one from Paris, one from Oxford and French and English juniors. It seems like a large number but obviously it was a very sensitive case and an important case for Romania. I worked on the case since 1999. So it’s been quite a long period as well. I’m a professor of International Law at Cambridge and also a member of the English and Australian Bars. I advise governments on a range of issues, including law of sea issues in regards delimitation and fisheries. The Government asked me if I could help them. It is a specialised professional relationship in that you are working directly with the people in Government, not through the intermediation of solicitors.

The Government decided at an early stage that it would run the case itself with the assistance of counsel and they appointed a fairly small in-house team – about six people – and they maintained the consistency of that team throughout the 10 years that it took, from the time in 1999 when the Government came to the conclusion that the negotiations had no prospect of success, till’ 2009 when we got the decision of the Court. This was important because the in-house people, the agent, the co-agent and the other younger lawyers knew what they were doing throughout and developed a familiarity with the issues which helped enormously.

"To put it crudely, the court traded the Serpent’s island for Sulina dyke"

R: Which were, in your opinion, the key moments of the trial?

J. Crawford: The actual court cases are nothing like the trials you see on television. You can occasionally see things on television from international trials, but it all looks like it’s happening very slowly and most of the key developments occur behind the scenes, in particular in the deliberations of the court, which of course are secret.

The key issues in the case were, simplifying matters greatly, the following. The first aspect is that in the Black Sea Ukraine has much longer coastline than Romania does, because of the Crimean peninsula in particular. And the Ukrainian coastlines are deeply indented, which greatly increases the length of the coastline. Now, one criterion taken into account in maritime delimitation is coastal length, because every seacoast is entitled in principle to maritime zones - territorial sea and economic zone. So the theory has gone that if you have more coast, you get more zones. And that had the potential consequence of squeezing Romania entirely out, especially in the Northern part of the Romanian coast. So there was the important question of which coastal length would be taken into account.

The second problem coming up to the trial, which is a problem we always knew about, was Serpants Island, a very small island which used to belong to Romania. It was removed from Romanian control in a process which doesn’t bear much examination after the Paris Peace Treaty. It wasn’t removed from Romanian control by the Paris Peace Treaty, but by a bi-lateral agreement with the Soviet Union in 1948.

The problem when you have a coastline and an island off-shore fairly close to the coastline, in this case 23 miles away, if you give the island the same effect as the coast, it pushes the boundary off where it would otherwise be. It acts like a blocker. In the Ukrainian case, it was the combination of their coastline and the existence of this tiny island off-shore which threatened to push the whole of the Romanian maritime boundary well to the south.

So the crucial things that we had to do was to show first of all that some of the Ukrainian coast was irrelevant to our purposes, which we did to a certain extent. And secondly, to show that you had to draw the line, taking no account of the Serpents Island, which we did in the end completely successfully. What the court did was to draw a mainland coast equidistance line, which goes around Serpent’s Island on a 12-mile arc. That had already been agreed way back in 1949. And then the Court went on to discount the Sulina dyke, which is Romanian feature, which sticks out into the sea and had the effect of pushing the line in the other direction. To put it crudely, the Court traded Serpent’s Island for Sulina dyke.

That led to a line somewhat more to the south than the strict equidistance line would have been if you could have drawn that from the end of Sulina dyke. But not very far. It meant that essentially, Romania has the entire economic zone of its coasts in a forward projection up to the medium line with the Crimea. That is, in fact, a much better line than we thought we might get. And it reflected that 80% of the overlapping claims. If you take the two claims of the parties and take the zones that overlapped, Romania won 80% of that area. In maritime trials, that is a good win.

"The Court was unanimous and this is unusual in maritime limitations"

R: Why did you think that Romania would get less?

J. Crawford: Well, I was worried about coastal length. A particular worry was the south-facing coast of Ukraine. You could treat that western part of that part of the Black Sea and Ukraine did treat the Western part of the Black Sea as the sort of Ukrainian lake, because of its control of Crimea. And I was worried that the projection from the North, which coasts project 200 miles of economic zone, would have the effect of pushing us to the South.

And it was also the concern that the Court might say that the Serpent’s Island should be given some effect. Serpent’s Island is small, but it is there. When islands are given effect in maritime delimitation it is not uncommon to give them half-effect, which means that you draw a line giving then full effect and a line giving them zero effect and then split the difference. And I thought there was a risk that the court might say that taking into the account the coastal length, it was equitable to give Serpent’s Island half-effect. In fact, they gave it zero effect, but recovered some of the consequences of that for Ukraine by discounting Sulina dyke, which I think was fair.

What has to be emphasised is that the Court was unanimous and this is unusual in maritime delimitation. So we managed to get a judgment which satisfied the entire Court and nonetheless won the case. Quite often there is the fear that the Court would be unanimous, but at your expense. In other case, it would give you less than you’re entitled to in order to produce a substantial majority. But in President Higgins’ last case this did not happen.

"Ukraine was obviously interested in integration with Europe"

R: Why do you think that Ukraine went along with the verdict? They tried to compromise with Romania for so many years and it didn’t work out. Why now?

J. Crawford: The case was referred to the court with the agreement of Ukraine. And we’ve had 23 rounds of negotiations, which achieved nothing. Ukraine was obviously interested in integration with Europe, so it couldn’t be seen to simply rejecting the judgment of the court. The normal pattern is that if parties agree to go to the Court, they accept the result. And it’s easier for Ukraine to accept the result coming from an outside party than to make a compromise itself. From a political point of view, you can always blame the outside party. The area that I understand to be particularly prospective is the area East of Serpents Island where Ukraine got some, we got some. So they still got prospective areas in the Black Sea. We will see what happens.

R: Both Romania and Ukraine started to give away territories in the Black Sea to foreign companies before the verdict was ruled out. Can this be done legally?

J. Crawford: Well, obviously a company which accepts the concession from a Government in respect of a disputed area of a continental shelf or economic zone takes the risk that the government doesn’t own that, doesn’t have the right to give it away. Now that we have a line in the sea, that the Court has told us exactly where the boundary is, it will be for governments to modify those concessions, so that each of the companies stay on the right side of the line. I don’t know to which extent these concessions are continuing. Some of them are rather old, some of them are more recent. But that will have a corresponding effect for the companies.

R: How did you work with the Romanian team? Did you have to work long hours?

J. Crawford: I tend to go to bed early and get up early. One of my colleagues in the team goes to bed late and wakes up late. So between us, we were working 24 hours. One of us was always working. He does the night shift and I do the early morning shift. So he gives me his takes at the end of the day and I make comments on them while he’s asleep. It’s very efficient.

It’s very hard work. The Romanian team, including the cartographic expert, worked very hard and very well. It showed the wisdom of keeping the team together during the years of getting ready for the court case.

We also had to present the Romanian position as to the history of the dispute. It went back to this very controversial transaction of 1948, although that’s strictly irrelevant because Romania accepted Ukraine’s sovereignty over the Serpents Island in 1997 in a bi-lateral agreement. So it wasn’t anymore relevant strictly speaking. Nonetheless, the government’s position was that the court had to be told how this issue arose. And there were a series of agreements between the Soviet Union and Romania after 1948. It started with 1949, which drew a line around Serpents Island – a 12-mile line. And one of our arguments was that the line was an all-purpose maritime boundary; the Court didn’t accept that, but it produced a result which was nearly the same as if it had been, so I didn’t mind losing that argument.

The court said the 1949 Agreement wasn’t clear enough. It was expressed only as a territorial sea boundary not as an exclusive economic zone boundary. And the exclusive economic zone boundary developed later. It wasn’t really an existence in 1949, so the parties couldn’t have agreed in 1949 what the boundary would be. I think that’s correct.

 

Published in

 http://english.hotnews.ro/stiri-regional_europe-7037514-much-better-line-than-thought-might-get.htm

Rocks into Islands

By Qin Jize, Li Xiaokun and Cheng Guangjin (China Daily)

Updated: 2010-02-11 09:10
 

Japan's latest move to transform a group of rocks into an "island" so as to claim an expanded exclusive economic zone (EEZ) endangers the interests of its neighbors. It not only deprives others from due economic interests but also threatens their national security, Chinese experts said.

Japan's Congress on Tuesday approved a law that would give the central government, rather than local entities, the authority to manage and control specific remote, uninhabited "islets" in an effort to expand its EEZ.

The first two candidates are the remote Pacific outcroppings of Okinotori, an atoll of coral reefs 1,700 km south of Tokyo, and Minamitori, 2,000 km southeast of Tokyo.

If successful, Japan may claim an EEZ of about 400,000 sq km, almost the same as Japan's land territory, and continental shelf of about 740,000 sq km around the uninhabited Okinotori atoll as long as it can prove it to be an "island".

"The Okinotori atoll is only about 10 sq m above the sea at the flood-tide and is nothing but a rock according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in Beijing last month.

According to UNCLOS Article 121: "Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf."

"If Japan's efforts succeed, other countries will not be allowed to fish or share other rich natural resources in a region that is currently regarded as international high seas," Wang Hanling, an expert in maritime affairs and international law at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told China Daily.

"Besides, for some neighbors such as China and the Republic of Korea, the fleets' freedom of navigation along some key routes in the area will also be hampered. That will pose risks to their national security," Wang said.

"Japan's claim over Okinotori, which lies between Taiwan and Guam, is in a strategically important position for Japan's benefit," said Jin Yongming, a fellow researcher from the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. "But the move has harmed other countries' navigation interests and marine survey in the sea waters around Okinotori, and is contrary to the principle of fairness."

Japan has been trying to make the atoll a de facto island through a series of moves over the years.

Since 1987, Japan has spent some $300 million in building a concrete wall around the Okinotori atoll, and has already completed a solar-powered lighthouse.

Japan has also allocated part of its fiscal 2010 draft budget for infrastructure on Okinotori atoll to keep it from submerging into the sea.

"Japan's actions and claims are obviously untenable in legal terms and other countries have also raised their concerns," Ma said. "The construction of facilities, however, will not change its legal status."

Aside from Beijing, Seoul has also complained to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf about Japan's effort to create an artificial island to meet the international laws. So far there is no deadline for the commission to give a conclusion to end the dispute.

In another development, China announced recently that it has built a series of stone tablets and lighthouses on islands and reefs off its coast in East China Sea, signifying the completion of permanent markers of all the baseline points in the oil-rich area.

The move is seen as Beijing's latest efforts to clarify its territorial waters' baseline in East China Sea, so that the country can legally extend the exclusive economic zones under international protocols.

The latest permanent structure built to mark the country's East China Sea territorial baseline is on Waikejiao, a small sand island off the coast of Jiangsu province.

Zou Xingguo, political commissar of the Chinese navy's East Sea Fleet survey team, told reporters that the construction of permanent markers and data collection at the baseline points "are aimed at clarifying China's maritime sovereignty and provide substantial legal basis for China's exploitation and utilization of maritime sources."

China has adopted a straight baseline system in its maritime boundary delineation practice, which means joining specified or discrete points on the low-water line. The straight line drawn between the selected points should be the starting point for determining its territorial waters.

In 1996, the government announced some baseline points for the continent, territorial sea and Xisha Islands.

The country also joined the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea the same year and claimed a 12 nautical-mile wide territorial sea adjacent to the mainland, Taiwan and other major islands.

Gao Hong, an expert on Japan studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the construction of permanent markers of the baseline points is the necessary preparation for China to conduct dialogues with neighboring countries for solving territory disputes.

Xinhua citing the National Land and Sea Defense Commission as the source said that China has settled land boundary disputes with 12 neighboring countries through negotiation, accounting for about 90 percent of its total borderline.

Yet disputes over territorial waters with neighboring nations are still outstanding.

Published in\

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2010-02/11/content_9461259.htm

New Zealand Extended Continental Shelf

New Zealand’s right to approximately 1.7m square kilometres of extended continental shelf seabed has been confirmed by the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

The extended continental shelf is the shelf that extends beyond New Zealand’s 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

It is in addition to the approx four million square kilometres of seabed in the New Zealand EEZ. The extended continental shelf is about six times New Zealand’s total land area (about 270,000 square kilometres).

The New Zealand submission was the result of a 10-year, $44m project involving technical, scientific, legal and policy input from a range of New Zealand government agencies.

These include the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), Land Information New Zealand (LINZ), National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), and Institute of Geological and Nuclear Science (GNS Science).

New Zealand lodged its submission with the UN Commission in 2006 in accordance with the procedures in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea [external link].

Over the past two years, a team of New Zealand officials (from MFAT and LINZ) and scientists (from NIWA and GNS Science) have met four times with a special sub-commission set up to consider the NZ submission.

New Zealand’s team answered questions and provided further information on New Zealand’s continental shelf.

The Commission issued its recommendations on 12 September (2008). It has endorsed more than 98 percent of New Zealand’s original submission.

New Zealand can now set the outer limits of its continental shelf on the basis of the Commission’s recommendations, subject to agreeing maritime boundaries with Fiji, Tonga and possibly France (in respect of New Caledonia) to the north.

It’s not yet known what natural resources might be on the extended New Zealand shelf. However, the process ensures New Zealand enjoys sovereign rights over them.

The New Zealand Government already earns more than $100 million per annum in royalties and other income from the seabed within the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

Australia’s extended continental shelf was confirmed by the UN Commission in April 2008, and is about the size of Western Australia – approx 2.5 million square kilometres.

• 
  Information on the Continental Shelf Project in the “New Zealand Continental Shelf Report” published by Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) more
• 
  Information on the scientific work involved in the preparation of the New Zealand submission more

Published in

http://www.mfat.govt.nz/Features/NZs-extended-seabed-claim.php

Singapore plans to claim Territorial Sea and Exclusive Economic Zone around Pedra Branca

July 24, 2008
S'pore's claim to exclusive zone around Pedra Branca 'an act of provocation'

JOHOR BARU - SEVERAL Johor politicians are upset with Singapore's plan to claim a territorial sea and an exclusive economic zone around Pedra Branca.

Puteri Wangsa state assemblyman Datuk Abdul Halim Suleiman called the statement by Singapore as 'an action of provocation' and said Malaysia should not be trapped by the provocation, a tactic the republic used regularly, Malaysian media reported on Thursday.

He said Singapore should have referred the maritime border issue to the technical committee.
Singapore Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Balaji Sadasivan told its Parliament on Monday that the Pedra Branca saga has entered a new phase and the next main development will take place later this year.

That's when Singapore and Malaysia will carry out a joint survey of the area around Pedra Branca island and two nearby maritime features: Middle Rocks and the South Ledge.

This will pave the way for both countries to discuss maritime delimitation issues related to the three areas, which are in the Singapore Strait 40km east of the Republic.

Dr Balaji also said that Singapore will announce 'at an appropriate time' the precise coordinates of the territorial sea and exclusive economic zone that it is claiming around Pedra Branca.

Johor Historical Association committee member Zaaba Abdul Samad described Singapore Senior Minister of State Balaji Sadasivan's statement as 'wild' since the technical committee of both countries were still in talks over the maritime border.

'Personally, I think Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim, who is in Singapore for the Asean Foreign Ministers Meeting, should leave immediately in protest against the provocative statement,' he was quoted by the New Straits Times as saying.

Mr Zaaba said the association will continue its efforts to trace the letter sent by Straits Settlements Governor William John Butterworth to the Sultan of Johor in 1844 asking permission to build a lighthouse on Pedra Branca.

Gelang Patah state assemblyman Datuk Abdul Aziz Sapian said Dr Balaji's statement showed that Singapore wanted to expand its territory and become a major maritime force in the region.

In Kuala Lumpur, Umno Youth chief Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said Singapore's move was not in tune with the fine ties between the two countries and was also against the Asean spirit.

Published in

http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/S-E%2BAsia/STIStory_260863.html

Koreas fail to agree on fishing zone

PANMUNJOM, South Korea (Reuters) - Generals from the rival Koreas, their talks marred earlier by a shoving match, failed on Friday to reach a deal on a joint fishing zone in their disputed waters off the west coast of the peninsula.

The two sides, technically still at war, bickered throughout their three-day meeting on where to set up a Yellow Sea fishing zone and how big it should be.

"The two sides haven't reached a deal but have agreed to continue discussions," a Seoul Defence Ministry official said of the meeting at the Panmunjom truce village, which lies inside a buffer zone dividing the peninsula.

Defence ministers had failed in late November to agree on the extent of the fishing zone to encompass a maritime boundary known as the Northern Limit Line (NLL).

The NLL was set unilaterally by U.N.-led forces after the 1950-53 Korean War and Seoul's military recognised it as the de facto sea border. Pyongyang declared the line invalid in 1999.

North Korea wants its fishing vessels to be able to travel well south of the line and rejects Seoul's proposal for a small, pilot area to either side of the NLL that would be open to fishermen from both countries.

On Thursday, military officers taking part in the Panmunjom talks shoved each other after the North tried to put on a slide show to explain its ideas for the zone's location. South Korean officers tried to stop what they considered to be a propaganda exercise.

The leaders of the two Koreas agreed at a rare summit in October to set up the zone to reduce tensions. The states are technically still at war because the Korean War combatants never signed a peace treaty.

Dozens of sailors from both Koreas died in clashes across the NLL in 1999 and 2002.

Published in

http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-30986820071214

Japan and China make no progress in resolving EEZ

By Isabel Reynolds
BEIJING, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Japan and China failed to make progress in resolving a long-running dispute over natural resources in the East China Sea in talks in Beijing on Saturday, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said.

Komura met Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi before leading a delegation of six Japanese ministers in wide-ranging economic talks with their Chinese counterparts later in the day, in an event meant to symbolise warming ties.

"We had deeper discussions than in the past, but I can't say there was any progress, because neither side agreed to the other's ideas," Komura told journalists after three hours of what he described as reasonably good talks with Yang.

Eleven rounds of official-level talks have already failed to yield a compromise on the development of gas fields in the East China Sea.

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and then-Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe agreed in April that officials should come up with a concrete plan for joint development by the autumn.
Japan's top government spokesman has said that failure to reach agreement could affect a visit by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda planned for late this year or early next, although China has denied this is the case.

"Both sides agreed to try to resolve the problem before Prime Minister Fukuda's visit to China," a Japanese official said later.

Japan and China disagree about the border between their respective exclusive economic zones in the East China Sea. Tokyo fears that China could siphon off resources from geological structures that extend into what it sees as its own economic zone.

Published in http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKT36637620071201