Senior representatives from Pacific Island countries, who attended a working session in Sydney, Australia from 1 to 13 November 2010, which was organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat and SOPAC.
Ending the stalemate: Commonwealth helps Pacific countries settle unresolved maritime boundaries
15 November 2010
Commonwealth Secretariat helped countries gain access to over 3 million sq km of additional seabed in 2009 and 2010
The Commonwealth Secretariat is working with Pacific Island countries to settle unresolved maritime boundaries and make a series of new extended continental shelf submissions to the United Nations.
In a novel, regional approach to boundary delimitation, Pacific Island countries are co-operating, rather than adopting an adversarial approach, in order to resolve overlapping claims and develop extended continental shelf submissions to the UN.
In an ambitious move, the Secretariat has set a target of assisting Commonwealth member countries in the region to settle their unresolved maritime boundaries within five years. It will seek to achieve this milestone by acting in an informal partnership with specialist technical organisations active in the region - such as the Pacific Islands Applied GeoScience Commission (SOPAC), the UN Environment Programme, Grid-Arendal, Geoscience Australia and GEOCAP - to deliver co-ordinated legal and technical advice to member countries.
The Secretariat will couple this with ongoing work to assist member countries in the Pacific to prepare further submissions to the UN for areas of extended continental shelf. Many of these submissions will be joint submissions involving Commonwealth member countries in partnership with non-Commonwealth countries.
What is a continental shelf?
The continental shelf of a coastal state comprises the seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas that extend beyond its territorial sea throughout the natural prolongation of its land territory to the outer edge of the continental margin, or to a distance of 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured where the outer edge of the continental margin does not extend up to that distance. (Source: Article 76, 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea)
“We are consciously discarding the old adversarial way of negotiating maritime boundaries, which often leads to stalemate, dispute and expensive court cases which rarely benefit the countries concerned. It is clear from the recent working session in Sydney that Pacific Island countries want to resolve their boundaries through co-operation, being acutely aware that the management of their ocean will play a critical role in securing a sustainable future,” said Joshua Brien, a Legal Adviser with the Secretariat, who leads the Maritime Boundary Programme.
Achievable milestone
Mr Brien added: “We are setting an ambitious goal to assist our member countries in the region to settle their maritime boundaries within a relatively short time. With dedicated projects in place for many member countries, we believe that this milestone is very achievable.”
This regional approach has already proven to be a resounding success, with a number of Pacific Island countries having lodged joint submissions with the United Nations, and many others actively engaged in maritime boundary negotiations and also seeking to reform their respective maritime boundary legislation based on a common template developed by the Secretariat, SOPAC and Geoscience Australia.
The Secretariat is aiming to apply the Pacific approach to other regions such as the Caribbean and Africa, where it is active in providing advice to member countries on maritime boundary matters.
Pioneering work
The Commonwealth is the only international organisation in the world today that provides fully funded legal and technical assistance to governments concerning the delimitation of maritime boundaries.
The programme covers two main areas of assistance, focusing upon the establishment of maritime boundaries by member countries in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982, and also the preparation of extended continental shelf submissions to the UN.
The Commonwealth is presently providing maritime boundaries assistance to some 21 member countries, with a particular focus on some of its smallest and most vulnerable. It now has dedicated projects in place for seven member countries in the Pacific, five member countries in the Caribbean, three member countries in the Asian region and six member countries in the African region.
Throughout 2009 and 2010 the combined figure for the area of seabed claimed by countries that have received assistance from the Commonwealth is over 3 million square kilometres.
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