Indian media reports factually incorrect:
No dispute with India over oceans - NOAC Chairman
Not referred any matter to ITLOS:
Sri Lanka is not in dispute with India to refer any matter pertaining
to the oceans to the International Tribunal for Law of the Sea (ITLOS),
which is a body set up within the UN for resolution of disputes,
National Ocean Affairs Committee, (NOAC) Chairman Chris Dharmakirti said
in response to Indian media reports that both India and Sri Lanka have
filed separate cases before ITLOS.
"At the moment, only Bangladesh, Myanmar and India have declared
disputes in the Bay of Bengal basin, and the resolution of those
disputes have been brought before ITLOS, and Sri Lanka is not a party
cited in those disputes, and therefore the Indian media report is
factually incorrect," Dharmakirti explained.
According to Dharmakirti, Sri Lanka does have an overlapping claim in
the Bay of Bengal with India and Myanmar, but that is not in dispute at
the present time. "We have filed our claim before the UN Commission set
up to examine Continental Shelf Margin claims, which is entirely a
different and separate body to ITLOS. It is called the Commission on the
Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS)," he said.
"All three nations have filed their claims separately with the CLCS
set up under UNCLOS, which is a different UN body to ITLOS," he
explained.
The Chairman further clarified that the CLCS under UNCLOS, is a
dedicated Commission comprised of ocean scientists and geo science
experts nominated by States parties to the UN Law of the Sea Convention,
who are required to examine each coastal nation's claim and determine
them. Whilst ITLOS is a body comprised of legal experts on the law of
the sea, whose role and task are to interpret the UNCLOS convention and
other international maritime treaty provisions including customary
international law when a dispute arises.
"Whilst UNCLOS determines the scientific acceptability of the
extended continental shelf area as determined by each coastal state
using seismic and bathymetric data, ITLOS is a dispute settlement
mechanism, that only comes into the picture, when a two or more states
have a dispute," he further explained.
Although Sri Lanka and India did at a very early stage, seven years
ago, at a track two discussions did contemplate a joint submission to
the Commission (UNCLOS) using the statement of understanding provisions
in Annex 11 of the convention, for the overlapping areas, the decision
to file separate claims, independently, has not prejudiced either party,
and has been done with both India and Sri Lanka issuing separate note
verbales to the UN stating that both countries are filing their claims
without prejudice or objections to the other.
"We have a very good understanding on this with India, and in fact in
2009, after both our countries filed separate submissions to UNCLOS, we
got together in New York to jointly draft and submit a special
resolution calling upon the UN Secretary General to allocate more
resources to the Commission and to take steps to expedite the submission
hearings and process," Dharmakirti said.
As a direct result of that joint initiative which also had the
support of Japan, China, Brazil, EU and even the US delegates at the UN,
in 2012, the UN Secretary General did allocate more financial resources
and expedited the UN Commission on the Law of the Sea sittings from six
weeks each year to 26 weeks, a 400 per cent improvement in the
processing time of the claims made by each coastal state.
"India is behind us in the queue, and we are slotted as the 43rd
country in that long line of nations awaiting the examination of our
submission by the UN Commission, and although previously both India and
us would have had our claims only heard in 2028, with the expedited
process, we could hopefully have ours examined as early as 2018," the
Chairman said.
In addition to India, Myanmar and Bangladesh, the Maldives also have
an overlapping seabed area with Sri Lanka. According to Dharmakirti, it
is the policy of the government to explore the cooperative mechanisms to
handle the shared, overlapping areas of claims in the seabed. "There are
enough examples from around the world for Sri Lanka and her neighbouring
coastal states in the Bay of Bengal to put in place a Joint Ownership
Commission or a Shared Resource Development mechanism to handle the
valuable mineral and hydro carbon resources that the nations in the
region are destined to own jointly," Dharmakirti pointed out.
"We have to first get our claim for the extended continental shelf
validated and recognized by the UN CLCS first, before we progress to the
next stage of contemplating how we would work out the sharing
mechanisms, or indeed, if no agreement is reached, dispute resolution
options, " he said. |