এই আওয়ামী লীগ সরকারের আমলেই ভারতের সাথে অমীমাংসীত ২৫ হাজার ৬০২ বর্গকিলোমিটার সমুদ্র সীমার মধ্যে ১৯ হাজার ৪৬৭ বর্গকিলোমিটার সমুদ্র অর্জন করেছে বাংলাদেশ। এটি দেশের জন্য বিরাট এক কূটনৈতিক সাফল্য। এ ফলে সমুদ্র থেকে তেল, গ্যাস ও খনিজ সম্পদ আহরণ করে দেশের অর্থনীতিকে এগিয়ে নেবার পথে আরো একধাপ এগিয়ে গেল বাংলাদেশ। নীচের লেখাটি পড়ুন আর শেয়ার করে জানিয়ে দিন বন্ধুদের। জয় বাংলা, জয় বঙ্গবন্ধু। ‘V’ for victory Writer: Moin Ghani,advocate of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. Understanding the final determination of Bangladesh’s maritime borders, and the wider scope it may provide the nation with. One of the greatest achievements of the present Awami League Government has undoubtedly been the peaceful resolutions of Bangladesh’s maritime disputes with both Myanmar and India in the span of less than five years. Behind this achievement lies not only hard work of a team of leading international lawyers, visionary leadership from the highest level of the Government, but also fortuitous coincidences. Origins of Bangladesh’s disputes with Myanmar and India The disputes regarding the maritime boundaries with Myanmar and India had been inherited by Bangladesh following its independence from Pakistan. These disputes had been lingering since the partition of British India in 1947, and the demarcation of the boundaries between East and West Bengal by the Commission chaired by Sir Cycil Radcliffe. For Bangladesh, the first round of negotiations with both India and Myanmar were held in 1974. Both India and Myanmar were negotiating from a position where they were each claiming their respective boundary line to be drawn using the equidistance method. The use of this method would have resulted in Bangladesh being “cut off” from a significant portion of the Bay of Bengal due to the concavity of its coastline. Bangladesh, during the official level talks and ministerial meetings in 1974, based its stand on the judgment of the International Court of Justice in the North Sea Continental Shelf case, which held that in situations where the equidistance method led to inequitable results, the equidistance line could be adjusted to take into account relevant circumstances. Bangladesh had thus always sought an equitable solution to the disputes taking into account the concavity of its coastline which led to the “cut off” effect. In 1974, the Bangladesh government had sought advice from leading lawyers of that time, including Sir Robert Jennings who provided an opinion supporting Bangladesh’s position. Similarly, Shigeru Oda, a counsel in the North Sea Continental Shelf case, reinforced Bangladesh’s position with his opinion, provided in 1974, before he joined the International Court of Justice as a judge. Bangladesh had throughout stood its ground on the position taken by Bangabandhu’s Government post-independence. Events of 2008-2009 The disputes started escalating in November, 2008, when Bangladesh, under a military backed caretaker government, faced the dire prospects of an armed conflict with Myanmar arising out of the maritime boundary dispute between the two countries. Naval ships of Bangladesh and Myanmar faced off each other about 50 nautical miles southwest of St Martin’s Island, where four ships from Myanmar escorted by two naval warships, had begun oil exploration. As a reaction Bangladesh sent three of her naval vessels and formally protested by insisting that the maritime areas in dispute were within Bangladesh’s waters. Myanmar declared that it would continue exploration of the Bay of Bengal, even in the disputed areas. It was against this background that in January, 2009, Sheikh Hasina was sworn into office as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Both Myanmar and India were effectively enforcing the maritime boundaries in a manner so as to leave a very small portion of the Bay of Bengal for Bangladesh. One of the first major decisions the newly appointed prime minister had to take was to decide how to deal with the escalating disputes in the Bay of Bengal. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took the bold decision to try and resolve the maritime boundary disputes with Myanmar and India through arbitration, even though both countries had preferred to try and reach a negotiated settlement. To this end, she decided to consult an international lawyer, Professor Pyam Akhavan, who had coincidentally not only acted as lawyer for her when she was incarcerated by the military backed caretaker government, but had also acted as counsel for Guyana in another maritime dispute case between Guyana and Suriname which was resolved in 2007. About the same time, in 2008, Professor Akhavan had come to Bangladesh, in the face of threats of arrest from Bangladesh security agencies, and met Sheikh Hasina in order to act as her legal counsel. In 2009, Sheikh Hasina, as prime minister of Bangladesh, again contacted Professor Akhavan, this time to seek advice on the maritime disputes with Myanmar and India. Professor Akhavan with the help of Paul Reichler of Foley Hoag LLP, a leading US-based law firm, brought together a team of the world’s leading international lawyers to represent Bangladesh. This team comprised of other legal luminaries such as Professor Alan Boyle of University of Edinburgh, Professor James Crawford of University of Cambridge, Lawrence H Martin of Foley Hoag LLP, and Professor Philippe Sands QC of University College London. Dr Dipu Moni, former foreign minister, and Md Khurshed Alam, a retired rear admiral, acted as agents for Bangladesh and provided invaluable support to the legal experts. Both were instrumental in shaping and guiding the courageous policy of the Government, taken at its highest level, to break the 40 year old diplomatic stalemate which had deprived Bangladesh its fair share of the resources in the Bay of Bengal. The government took the bold decision of submitting the disputes to the dispute settlement procedures of United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Annex VII, UNCLOS allows disputes to be resolved by ad-hoc arbitration – unless the parties agree to refer the dispute to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (Itlos). Myanmar and Bangladesh both agreed to submit the dispute to the Itlos. The case with India was resolved by arbitration under UNCLOS, Annex VII as India refused to agree to refer the dispute to Itlos. Itlos Judgment 2012 The Itlos Tribunal in the Bangladesh-Myanmar case issued its judgment and delimited the maritime boundary between Bangladesh and Myanmar till the outer continental shelf area. The decision which had been widely viewed as a “win” for Bangladesh, awarded Bangladesh nearly 112,000 square kilometres of sea, including its full “exclusive economic zone” – the first 200 nautical miles of continental shelf – and a substantial area beyond. Bangladesh regarded itself as having prevailed in the dispute, having received 95% of the sea area claimed and some 80% of the disputed area. The delimitation line drawn by the Itlos Tribunal was close to and parallel to the line claimed by Bangladesh. The tribunal had rejected Myanmar’s argument that the sea boundary sliced across Bangladesh’s exclusive economic zone and left it with just a narrow wedge of sea extending 130 miles from the coast. The Itlos Judgment also set a favourable precedent for Bangladesh in the then pending dispute between Bangladesh and India. Bangladesh had opted for resolution of the dispute with Myanmar by Itlos to achieve some consistency between the Itlos tribunal and the one hearing the dispute with India. Annex VII arbitration allows for five-arbitrator panels, including one appointed by each side. The chair of the panel and two additional arbitrators are appointed by the president of Itlos. Thus the panel of arbitrators hearing the Bangladesh-India case included three Itlos judges who had also presided over the Bangladesh-Myanmar case. The Bangladesh-India Award 2014 The easiest way to understand the extent of the gains made by Bangladesh in the cases with India and Myanmar, is probably to look at the delimitation lines that have been established, and to compare those with what was the negotiating claim lines or de facto maritime boundaries enforced by Myanmar and India prior to 2009. The Annex VII Tribunal in the Bangladesh-India case issued its decision on July 7, 2014, and delimited the maritime boundary between Bangladesh and India. The decision has also been viewed as a significant “victory” for Bangladesh. Bangladesh had claimed a delimitation line that ran 180° from where the land boundary between Bangladesh and India terminated. On the other hand, India had claimed a maritime boundary delimitation line running approximately 170° from the land boundary terminus. The delimitation line that was drawn by the Tribunal runs at about 177.3°, from shortly beyond the edge of the territorial sea to the outer limits of Bangladesh’s maritime zones. The direction of the line itself clearly shows that the delimitation of the territorial waters, and the exclusive economic zones resulted in Bangladesh obtaining a more favourable result in the areas closer to the shore. These areas, within 200 nautical miles, are closer to shore and richer in both living and mineral resources. It is true that Bangladesh did not get everything it wanted beyond the 200 nautical miles. In particular, the Tribunal did not shift the delimitation line once it reached the 200 nautical miles to run parallel to the Bangladesh-Myanmar delimitation line. However, that is the nature of international arbitration between states. No state ever gets everything it asks for. However, even getting some slice of the maritime waters beyond 200 nautical miles should be viewed as a symbolic victory for Bangladesh. This would allow Bangladesh to explore areas over which it did not have undisputed access before the award of July 7, 2014. Achievements for Bangladesh The Itlos Judgment of 2012 and the Arbitration Award of 2014 have provided to the people of Bangladesh a just and equitable share of the maritime resources of the Bay of Bengal. The Government’s courageous and visionary decision, in its first year in office, to initiate arbitration against two larger neighbours has helped break the 40-year severe and arbitrary limitations on maritime access. The final determination of the maritime boundaries of Bangladesh will be of immense benefit to the 160 million people of Bangladesh in as much as Bangladesh would be able to explore, in an unhindered manner, the possibilities for oil and gas exploration. The advancement of technology over the last few decades has meant that the exploitation of submarine petroleum and mineral resources has become commercially viable. Given the growing scarcity of energy, and the high potential of discovery of gas and petroleum resources in the Bay of Bengal, the favourable decisions obtained by Bangladesh could prove to be of significant economic value. It would be very good for Bangladesh if we, as a people, could be united in our appreciation of these positive results for Bangladesh. -Dhaka Tribune Link: bit.ly/1mnyZD3
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 06:46:50 +0000
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