Dhaka goes to UN tribunal on maritime boundary dispute

by Siddique Islam
Friday, 09 October 2009 13:04

Dhaka (Mizzima) - Bangladesh is going to place its maritime boundary dispute to a United Nations tribunal to settle the conflict over territorial waters with India and Burma that threatens its rights to explore gas in the Bay of Bengal.

"We have decided to go for arbitration as the issue has not been resolved through bilateral discussions with the two neighbouring countries in the last 35 years," Foreign Minister of Bangladesh Dipu Moni said at a press conference at the ministry in the capital, Dhaka on Thursday.

The minister said the government has decided to take the maritime boundary dispute to a compulsory arbitration under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, for a peaceful settlement.

Her comments came hours after Foreign Secretary Mijarul Kayes handed over copies of the notification Dhaka is making to the UN and claim of its sea territory to Indian High Commissioner Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty and Burmese Ambassador Phae Than Oo formally at the Foreign Ministry in Dhaka.

“We need to delimit our maritime boundary to explore and exploit oil, gas and other natural resources in the Bay to meet our challenges,” the Foreign Minister said.

A Foreign Ministry senior official told Mizzima that Bangladesh had appointed British Jurist Vaughn Lowe QC as its arbitrator to plead the country’s case at the world body.

The Bangladesh Foreign Minister said the government would also keep the options for dialogue open, as both countries are "Bangladesh's friends. We remain committed to the on-going negotiations with our neighbours."

The move came in the wake of the government last week opening negotiations with two international oil companies (IOCs) --- ConocoPhilips of the United States and Tullow of Ireland --- to sign deals to explore oil and gas in three offshore blocks.

Both India and Burma, which have made large gas discoveries in their parts of the Bay, last week lodged protests over Dhaka's move to grant exploration rights to the two companies, saying the three blocks overlapped their territorial waters.

Bangladesh Foreign Ministry reacted forcefully against the protests. "The claims of our neighbours have unfairly cut off a significant portion of our maritime area in the Bay of Bengal. And it prevented us from exploring and exploiting oil and natural gas resources."

The government said it took the maritime dispute to the UNCLOS "with a view to preserving our national wealth and sovereign rights in the Bay of Bengal."

The Foreign Minister said the arbitration under the convention could end the dispute with the neighbours "amicably in about five years time.”

The ministry said: "Because all three countries are parties to this Convention, they are under an obligation to accept the final award of this tribunal, which we anticipate will take approximately four to five years.”

In September this year, the Bangladesh government gave the green signal to an Energy Ministry’s decision to lease out blocks Nos. 5, 10 and 11 to ConocoPhilips and Tullow Oil plc in the Bay of Bengal for oil and gas exploration.

ConocoPhillips, the third largest energy company in the US, will get deep-sea blocks Nos. 10 and 11 while Irish company Tullow gets shallow-sea block No. 5, according to the Energy Ministry.