Continental Shelf claims increase rapidly

By NATHANIAL GRONEWOLD, Greenwire

UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. commission charged with checking and certifying nations' claims to seabed stretching hundreds of miles from their shorelines is getting very busy very fast.

The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf -- a body of specialized undersea geographers and hydrographers established under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention -- has seen its workload double from late last year, fulfilling its members' predictions of a backlog that could take years to resolve.

From 2001 through 2007, just nine claims were put forward as more advanced Law of the Sea Treaty countries surveyed their continental shelves. Giant claims submitted by Brazil, Australia and New Zealand were approved in 2007 and 2008, freeing those nations to prospect for hydrocarbons, mineral deposits or methane hydrates in their newly minted control zones.

But since Japan issued its sweeping claim to Pacific Ocean territory last November, many smaller states have leaped into the fray.

All told, the commission now has 22 applications, some of which include partial claims by the United Kingdom and France over sea bottom around their colonies. Nine claims arrived since Japan's submission, with five of those coming in the first three months of this year.

The newcomers include Burma, Mauritius, Yemen, Suriname and Seychelles. Claims by Uruguay and the Philippines arrived just last week in time for the 23rd session of the commission that wrapped up here Thursday.

And more applications are expected. Canada, Denmark, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea, Vietnam and a few others have said they are conducting surveys and preparing claims. Applications by Argentina, India, Kenya, Maldives, oil-rich Angola and more could arrive next month.

But the commission is working its way through earlier claims as applications pile up.Of the 22 claims, the commission has fully reviewed and given full or partial approval to just five. For example, the commission has confirmed the Russian Federation's 2001 claims in the Pacific Ocean and the Barents Sea, but it has told Moscow that it needed better data to review its attempt to control a huge swath of the Arctic.

The commission is still working its way through 2006 applications. Commission members are expected to issue their opinion soon on claims off Europe's west coast spelled out in a joint application by the E.U. states of Spain, France, Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Work will also soon be concluded on the commission's review of claims made by Norway in the Arctic and Atlantic and a small claim by Mexico for control of a patch of territory in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Commission members speaking on background say these three applications are sound and will likely win approval.

Tensions rise

Diplomatic tensions are rising with the applications as dormant territorial disputes resurface.

In February, China and Korea responded critically to Japan's claim to seabed off distant islands that it controls. The dispute centers around Okinotori, an outcrop that is found nowhere near Korean or Chinese waters. The two claim Japan's Okinotori is in fact a rock, not a habitable island, and therefore does not qualify under Law of the Sea rules.

"Available scientific data fully reveal that the rock of Oki-no-Tori, on its natural conditions, obviously cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of its own, and therefore shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf," the Chinese government says in its letter to the U.N. secretary-general.

And more serious conflicts are emerging. France has signaled its intention to claim continental shelf abutting the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, French territories very close to the east coast of Canada. The Canadian government has issued a strongly negative reaction, insisting that France and Canada have already settled on a maritime boundary through a bilateral treaty.

Argentina's forthcoming application is expected to include seabed surrounding the Malvinas, otherwise known as the Falkland Islands, which are controlled by the United Kingdom.

The most serious potential for disputes is in the Arctic, where Canada, Denmark, Norway and Russia all have competing claims.

Russia says it controls land beneath the North Pole, though Canadian media reports suggest there is growing evidence that Denmark could have a stronger claim through its administration of Greenland. Canada and Denmark still have unresolved territorial disputes in the high Arctic, and Russia and Norway have not fully delineated their maritime borders there.

Currently, the United States, Canada and Denmark are cooperating in exploring and mapping the subsurface features of the Arctic, gathering scientific data that will likely go into future submissions to the U.N. continental shelf commission.

But the United States is not legally eligible to participate in the process, as Congress has yet to ratify the Law of the Sea. Commission members have in the past said that they would most likely have to ignore a U.S. application if Washington submits one.

Copyright 2009 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
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The Philippines claimed extended continental shelf over Benham Rise

By Tessa Jamandre, Vera Files

The Philippines has filed before the United Nations a claim over Benham Rise, an extinct volcanic ridge off t­he east coast of Luzon, beating the May 13 deadline for states to submit claims over their extended continental shelves.

The Philippine delegation deposited the claim with the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) in New York City on April 8, making clear it was only a “partial submission.”

This means that other submissions, including those over disputed territories, would be made later. The disputed Kalayaan Island Group, which part of the Spratly Islands, and Scarborough Shoal are also said to be part of the country’s extended continental shelf and are believed to contain oil, natural gas, minerals and polymetals.

By filing the claim over Benham Rise, which is undisputed territory, the government has stopped the clock on the UN deadline and buys time to sort out border issues with its neighbors over the Kalayaan islands and Scarborough Shoal.

“As a gesture of good faith, the Philippines makes this partial submission in order to avoid creating or provoking maritime boundary disputes where there are none, or exacerbating them where they may exist, in areas where maritime boundaries have not yet been delimited between opposite or adjacent coastal States,” said the government in its partial submission.

The UN defines the continental shelf as the “the seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas that extend beyond its territorial sea” up to 200 nautical miles from the archipelagic baseline. A conti­nental shelf that goes farther than 200 nautical miles is called the extended continental shelf.

Claim to Benham Rise

The Philippine claim over Ben­ham Rise was prepared long before Congress enacted Republic Act 9522, or the Archipelagic Baselines Law, whose constitutionality is being questioned in the Supreme Court.

The Benham Rise Region is bounded by the Philippine Basin on the north and east, and by Luzon on the west and south. The submission asserted that Benham Rise is an extension of the Philippines’ continental shelf based on seismic, magnetic, gravity and other geological data collected.

The executive summary of the Philippine submission said the baselines used in the partial submission conform with the requirements of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and were used as the basis for delineating the maritime territorial and jurisdictional zones, including the continental shelf.

It was Philippine Ambassador to the UN Hilario Davide who filed the country’s partial submission with the commission. Among those who traveled to New York for the submission were lawyer Henry Bensurto, secretary general of the Center for Maritime and Ocean Affairs of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, and Ambassador Minerva Falcon, head of the department’s Foreign Service Institute.

A Philippine delegation is again expected to travel to New York to deposit the rest of the submissions in August, when the commission meets en banc.

Within UN rules

Bensurto said in an interview before leaving for New York that UN rules allow a partial submission. The government’s executive summary quoted the UN commission rules of procedure that “partial submissions may there­fore be made by a single coastal State for areas of its continental shelf that are not the subject of a maritime boundary dispute or a future maritime boundary delimitation.”

Galo Carrera-Hurtado of Mexico, a commissioner of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, helped the Philippines prepare its submission.

The Benham Rise Region is not subject to any maritime boundary disputes, claims or controversies, the executive summary said.

The country’s west coast facing the South China Sea is another matter. The Archipelagic Baselines Law has redrawn the country’s outer limits and from there, its extended continental shelf and exclusive economic zones overlap with Japan, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Palau, Malaysia and Indonesia.

All these overlaps projected from the newly enacted baseline law will have to be subject to border delimitation agreements before a complete and final submission to the UN is made.

Bensurto said that if an agreement is reached in border talks, then the Philippines could submit a claim unilaterally or jointly with the country concerned.

“For the controversial areas we don’t give up any claim, but we allow time, process, diplomacy or whatever tools are available to resolve it because anyway that is not going to be subject to any deadline,” he said. “So we just . . . do a partial submission in an area that is noncontroversial, nondisputed because if we insist to submit on contested areas nothing will happen, it will just be shelved.”

Supreme Court case

University of the Philippines law professors Merlin Magallona and Harry Roque, their students in constitutional law and public international law, and Anakbayan party-list Rep. Risa Hontiveros have questioned the constitutionality of Republic Act 9522 before the Supreme Court.

They also asked the High Tribunal on April 2 to issue immediately a temporary restraining order and writ of preliminary prohibitory injunction upon learning that the Philippine delegation was leaving on April 5 to file a partial claim in New York, but to no avail.

The 71-page petition filed said the new law “radically revised” the definition of the Philippine archipelago under the Treaty of Paris, resulting in a roughly triangular delineation that excludes large areas of waters within the 600 miles by 1,200 miles rectangle enclosing the “Philippine archipelago” as defined in the Treaty of Paris.

Republic Act 9522 redrew the country’s baselines to comply with the UN convention requirements for an “archipelagic state,” in the process excluding the disputed Kalayaan islands and Scarborough Shoal from the main archipelago and classifying them instead of “regimes of islands.” The UN Convention on the Law of the Seas defines a regime of islands as islands or naturally formed areas of land surrounded by water that remain above water during high tide.
By declaring the Kalayaan islands and Scarborough Shoal as regimes of islands, Magallona, Roque and their co-petitioners said the country has lost 15,000 square nautical miles of terri­torial waters.

Republic Act 9522 weakened the country’s claim not only over the Kalayaan islands but also over Sabah, they argued.

The Kalayaan Island Group is part of the disputed Spratlys chain of islands being claimed in part by the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei, and in whole by Vietnam and China. The Philippines and Malaysia, meanwhile, have conflicting claims over Sabah in northern Borneo.

No legal effect

Administrator Diony Ventura of the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA), which is involved in preparing the claims, said the case against Republic Act 9522 would have no legal effect on the extended continental shelf as partially submitted to the UN.

“As long as our measurement is in accordance with the UN process and procedure, there is no effect,” he said. “Extended continental shelf is a different topic . . . We didn’t include R.A. [Republic Act] 9522 there. When we were preparing it then, the R.A. wasn’t there yet and the line that we used there is according to the guidelines of the CLCS.”

Ventura said the partial submission was arrived at from a purely scientific undertaking, including studies that prove that Benham Rise is the “natural prolongation” of the country’s land mass.

“There’s even the historical evolution of the land supported by a hydrographic survey and an underwater map,” he said.

From 2004 to 2008, multi-beam echo-sounding survey cruises were conducted to collect hydrographic data to determine the morphology of the seabed in the Benham Rise Region. The data were supplemented by additional data from international bathymetric surveys and an analysis of international research projects.

The Benham Rise Region also satisfies the 350-mile constraint line set by the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf since the outer limits of the continental shelf are located landward of the constraint line. The constraint line is located 350 miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.

As to the Constraint Line requirement—2,500 meters plus 100 miles—the outer limits of the continental shelf beyond 200 miles in the Benham Rise Region is delineated by straight lines not more than 60 miles in length, connecting fixed points not more than 60 miles.

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6,000 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) stranded on Oman-UAE border

By Cynthia BalanaPhilippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 02:15:00 09/28/2008

THE DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN Affairs Saturday ordered its embassies in the Middle East to extend assistance to some 6,000 overseas Filipino workers stranded on the border of Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

Acting Foreign Secretary Esteban Conejos Jr. said the OFWs were stranded on the border because of recent changes in the UAE’s visa rules which took effect on July 29.

The new policy directs previous holders of visas to the UAE to reapply as tourists, resulting in the rejection of thousands of visa applications from Filipinos.

“The Filipinos had been warned since March (about the new rule),” said Conejos.
Nevetheless, he said, the DFA would appeal to the UAE government not to drive them away.
At any rate, the DFA would first coordinate with UAE officials before deciding whether or not to repatriate the Filipinos, Conejos said.

He stressed repatriation would be a last resort considering the big number of OFWs involved.
Embassy officials in Muscat, Tehran and Abu Dhabi, as well as the Philippine consulate in Dubai, have been mobilized to deal with the problem.

“(The decision to repatriate the OFWs) will depend on how the UAE government responds to our request for leniency,” Conejos said.

Conejos said that since Sept. 23, a four-man consular team from the embassy in Muscat has been going to various hotels in Al Buraimi, along the border with Oman.

Nearly 1,000 OFWs were reportedly holed up at the Al Buraimi Hotel alone.

The stranded OFWs said they were being asked by the hotels to deposit their passports upon checking in.

The OFWs who exited from Al Ain in the UAE as a result of the change in visa policy entered Oman using three-day tourist visas issued by Omani authorities. However, their visas expired before they could get fresh UAE visit visas to enter UAE.

Starting Aug. 1 this year, Oman also stopped the practice of issuing visas to regular exit visitors.
Aminah Marduen, the coordinator at the embassy in Oman, said that Filipinos and many other foreign nationals entered Oman without being aware of the new Omani immigration law.

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Spratly Islands

Group of several dozen small islands and reefs, south-central South China Sea. Located about midway between Vietnam and the Philippines, the group is claimed variously by Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Of the 12 main islets, the largest is the 90-acre (36-hectare) Itu Aba. Turtles and seabirds are the only permanent inhabitants. After World War II, China established a garrison on Itu Aba, which has been maintained by the Chinese government on Taiwan. All other claimants also have small military forces on several of the islands.

For more information visit:

http://www.answers.com/spratly

Filipino Monkey

By Marten Youssef, Staff WriterPublished: August 10, 2008, 23:49

For the past two decades an anonymous voice that comes over radio transmitters in the Gulf has been shrouded with a laughable mystery.

It is pitch-black in the operations deck, with exception to the odd red light sitting above the map of the Indian Ocean.

The crew of the Canadian navy ship, HMCS Calgary, gazes into the eerie, hushed sand starless night, which is rhythmically interrupted by the thundering sound of the warship crushing through the waters.

Channel 16 on the radio transmitter, used for distress calls, randomly screeches with the odd voice tearing through the silence - almost visibly.

In the most abrupt fashion, that shatters a sense of comedy into this tense hour, a squeaky voice announces over the transmitter. "Filipino Monkey", the caller stretches the words as if it was an opening line to a nightly performance and he is a standup comedian who just walked through the curtains with a mike in hand.

The crew laughs, unabated by the obscurity of this x-rated entertainer. Much of what the Filipino Monkey says is too profane to be repeated, but this faceless voice has become a comedy-relief and a cause for tension for the past four decades.

"We have to keep Channel 16 on when we are in our area of operation. It's the channel of communication here," says one of the Canadian sailors manning the radio transmitter.
The Filipino Monkey talks for hours and provokes ships in sometimes a vulgar exchange. He makes threatening remarks hoping to provoke seafarers, but few respond. "Sometimes he will get into a verbal fist-fight with other sailors and its humorous to listen to," the sailor says.
"There are war diaries from the Gulf War, and even before that, where there is reference to the Filipino Monkey," the sailor says.

First reference

As it turns out, the monkey has been around for a long time. In 1988, the first reference is made to the Monkey in a book titled No Higher Honor.

The book is an account of the US navy in the Arabian Gulf. In the book, Bradley Peniston, describes what it believed to be the first account of the Filipino Monkey.

"From time to time, the radio squawked, breaking the quiet with a burst of static. Most of the messages were fully routine, the expected traffic in a crowded sea. But every so often a high manic voice would break from the speaker: "Hee hee hee! Filipino Monkey!" No one knew who the caller was, or what he meant by his strange message."

The crew of the Canadian navy ship dismisses him as some bored figure that has nothing better to do but to taunt sailors.

In January 2008, it's believed that the Filipino monkey was the cause of an escalating tension between two warships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

"There actually is no way to track him down or to ask him to stop, because that would just aggravate him to keep doing it," the sailor says.

Although little is known on the person behind the monkey, sailors believe the original source is long gone and has been replaced by imitators who are trying to relieve themselves of the all-too-often mundane life of seafarers.

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