Through a landmark verdict by an international arbitration court, Bangladesh has finally won an area of 19,467 out of total 25,602 square kilometre disputed maritime boundary in the Bay of Bengal with India. The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration delivered the verdict on Monday after around five years of argument and counter-argument by the two nations and examination of survey reports. U
nder the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the judgment is final and not appealable and it is ‘binding’ on both the countries, settling the long-standing dispute between Bangladesh and India. Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali disclosed the contents of the verdict at a press conference held at 2:00pm at his ministry on Tuesday. In reaction, he said the verdict ended the arbitral process that was started by Bangladesh seeking justice to its claim on sea areas from the possession of India and Myanmar under the UNCLOS in October 2009, some four decades later the sea areas were determined by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman immediately after independence in 1971. “It is a victory for both the states, it is the victory of friendship and a win-win situation for the peoples of Bangladesh and India because it is finally resolved peacefully and according to international law. It was a problem that hampered economic development of both the states for more than three decades.” “We commend India for its willingness to resolve this matter peacefully by legal means and for its acceptance of the tribunal’s judgment,” Mahmood said. Earlier on March 14 in 2012, the German-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) awarded Bangladesh around 70,000 out of total 80,000 square kilometres disputed boundary with Myanmar. By the two verdicts, Bangladesh’s maritime boundary extended by 667 square kilometres to 118,813 square km in the bay, an exclusive economic zone of 200 nautical miles and sovereign rights of undersea resources in the continental shelf up to 345 nautical miles off the coast of Chittagong, Mahmood mentioned. He said India and Myanmar had confined Bangladesh’s sea areas by establishing and exercising supremacy on their respective territories applying ‘equidistance’ method from their respective coastline, which Bangladesh felt deprived of its rights and sought justice from the international arbitration court. “The five-member tribunal agreed with Bangladesh that “equidistance” method proposed for dividing disputed waters between the two neighbours was not ‘equitable’ to Bangladesh,” Mahmood quoted the verdict notes. He said land boundary terminus of India begins from Hariabhanga river while that of Bangladesh starts from Roymongal river according to the Radcliff Survey in 1947. As per the verdict, the sea areas of India, from now, shall be 117 nautical miles from Balasur coast and that of Bangladesh shall be 169nm from Cox’s Bazar coast in the bay, he observed. Mahmood said his government, led by Bangabandhu’s daughter Sheikh Hasina, took initiatives, first in 1996-2001 regime and twice in 2009 after assuming power, to recover Bangladesh’s sea areas. “Bangabandhu first took initiatives to establish legal entitlements of the people of Bangladesh to the apportionment of maritime areas and exploitation of marine resources therein in 1974. Under his guidance, parliament passed the “Territorial Waters and Maritime Zones Act-1974” which was the first maritime legislation enacted by any country in this region. Bangladesh declared 12nm of territorial sea and 200nm economic zone well before such concept was even developed widely in the international arena. “Bangabandhu also initiated maritime boundary negotiations with India and Myanmar and even settled the 12nm territorial sea boundaries with Myanmar in November 1974,” the minister noted. “No government, in the post-1975 periods until Sheikh Hasina came to power in 1996, took initiatives to recover the country’s legitimate sea territories.” He said the tribunal concluded hearings on the dispute with India in December 2013 after spot visits by judges to the disputed areas in the sea. Permanent Court of Arbitration is a permanent judicial body established by the United Nations in 1899 to facilitate arbitration and other forms of resolution of dispute between the nations. Judges of the court are Prof Dr Rüdiger Wolfrum (president), Germany, Jean-Pierre Cot (France), Thomas A Mensah (Ghana), Prof Ivan Shearer (Australia) and Dr Pemmaraju Sreenivasa Rao. On South Talpatti, an island that has long been claiming by Bangladesh in the bay, foreign ministry’s maritime unit head rear admiral (retd) Md Khurshed Alam told journalists that the area is now under India’s sea territory. He said the existence of Talpatti is no more. “The Island had been formed by the 1970 cyclone. It has also been lost in the sea through 1985 cyclone.” Former foreign minister Dipu Moni, who was involved in the process and attended the briefing, added that Bangladesh has long been missed an ideal map to understand its genuine mainland and maritime territory since 1980s when the first map was made by the then government. “From the beginning, there was no existence of Talpatti in Bangladesh’s map,” she told reporters, adding that, “Who had done this (map) and why? It is now highly questionable.” Dipu said the country’s map has been corrected in 2010 during the previous tenure of her government. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali said that Bangladesh has no capacity to utilise the full potential of its marine resources in the Bay of Bengal. “We are running short of capacity to explore marine resources,” he said while disclosing the content of an international court’s verdict on the maritime dispute with India at his office. He said Bangladesh’s sole independence has been established on 11,8813 square km in the Bay, an exclusive economic zone of 200 nautical miles and sovereign rights of underneath resources in the continental shelf up to 345 nautical miles off the coast of Chittagong through the Hague-based arbitral tribunal’s verdict on the maritime dispute with India and Myanmar. He said the verdict’s effectiveness has started through its formal discloser at 2:00pm (July 8) in Bangladesh, a compulsory 24-hour later after the verdict released by the tribunal at 2:00pm on the previous day (July 7) as per the tribunal’s rule. The foreign minister’s remarks came at a press conference when reporters wanted to know about how much oil and gas blocks Bangladesh got through the verdict on the maritime dispute with India and Myanmar.
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