Bangladesh gets 19,467 sq km Bay area

A UN tribunal has awarded Bangladesh 19,467 square kilometres, or nearly four-fifths of the 25,602 sq km sea area caught up in dispute with India.

Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali disclosed contents of an arbitration ruling on the case on the potentially energy-rich waters on Tuesday at a news conference in Dhaka.

Dhaka had sought a ruling to confirm its right to exploit the waters as allowed under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

He said: “Through this verdict, Bangladesh could finally establish its sovereign rights on more than 118,813 sq kms of territorial sea, 200 nautical miles (NM) of exclusive economic zone and all kinds of animal and non-animal resources under the continental shelf up to 354 NM from the Chittagong coast.”

The Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, dealing with the Bay of Bengal maritime boundary dispute between Bangladesh and India, handed copies of the verdict to ambassadors of the two countries on Monday.

The five-member panel weighed the case and reached the ruling based on the opinions of the majority members -- presiding Judge Rudiger Wolfrum of Germany and Judges Jean-Pierre Cot of France, Thomas A Mensah of Ghana and Ivan Shearer of Australia.

Only Pemmaraju Sreenivasa Rao of India differed with the others’ opinion.

The UN convention gives a country 12 nautical miles of territorial control with claim to sovereign rights to explore, exploit and manage natural resources within 200 miles.

The foreign minister said the tribunal awarded Bangladesh the sea area to ensure equity.

The foreign ministry in a media release said the tribunal agreed with Dhaka that the ‘equidistance’ method proposed for dividing the disputed waters between the two neighbouring states was not equitable to Bangladesh.

The minister said: “This verdict has ensured victory for both states. This verdict is the victory of the peoples of Bangladesh and India.”

Bangladesh went in for arbitration over the delimitation of maritime boundary under the UNCLOS on Oct 8, 2009.

The hearings ended in December last year when both sides argued their case before the international arbitration court in the Netherlands.

The tribunal had informed both parties of the verdict on Monday but there was an embargo to not make it public before 24 hours.

“To achieve an equitable result, the court awarded Bangladesh 19,467 sq km of area out of the estimated total disputed area of 25,602 sq km,” Mahmood Ali said on Tuesday.

He thanked the Indian government for its intent to resolve the long-pending issue in a peaceful way and to accept the court verdict.

Ali said the tribunal demarked the sea boundary of Bangladesh and India and its verdict was binding on both states with no provision left for appeal against it.

He said with the verdict, the disputes with India and Myanmar over maritime boundary came to an end.

Dispute and verdict

The Bangladesh delegation led by the foreign minister Ali attended the arbitration hearing held at the Peace Palace at The Hague on Dec 9, 2013.

The delegation also comprised former foreign minister Dipu Moni, incumbent Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque, and Maritime Affairs Unit Secretary Md Khurshed Alam.

The key issue of the dispute was over location of the land boundary terminus between the two countries and determination of the course of the maritime boundary in the territorial sea.

India was pressing for determination of the boundary on ‘equidistance’ method while Bangladesh was demanding ‘equitable solution’.

The verdict says the position of the land boundary terminus would be at 21 degrees 38 minutes 40.2 seconds on the north latitude and on 89 degrees 9 minutes 20 seconds on the east longitude (21° 26′ 43.6″N; 89° 10′ 59.2″E).

The tribunal noted that the land boundary terminus, determined by reference to the Radcliffe Award, is not at a point on the median/equidistance line.

A release of the PCA says the tribunal considered it to constitute a special circumstance and decided that the boundary should take the form of a 12 nautical mile long geodetic line continuing from the land boundary terminus in a generally southerly direction to meet the median line at 21° 26′ 43.6″N; 89° 10′ 59.2″E.

At the hearing, Bangladesh’s external counsels were Paul Reichler and Lawrence Martin from the United States, Professor James Crawford, Philippe Sands and Alan Boyle from the United Kingdom and Professor Payam Akhavan from Canada.

Bangladesh’s agent in the case, Dipu Moni said at the press conference: “Today is a day of our joy. Equity has won. Every party has won.

“It’s a win-win situation. We’ve got what we need. The neighbouring country has also got what it deserves.”

Advisor to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, HT Imam and State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shariar Alam were also present.

The talks on resolution to the maritime dispute began in 1974. Bangladesh moved the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in 2009 after bilateral efforts to solve it proved futile.

The issue went to the PCA at The Hague later in May, 2011.

Bangladesh won a ruling in a similar case against Myanmar in 2012.

The 2012 judgment was delivered by the 21-member ITLOS in Hamburg rejecting ‘equidistance’ boundaries as proposed by Myanmar and awarded Bangladesh a big share of the disputed waters in the eastern part of the Bay, including the continental shelf beyond 200 NM.

About Talpatti

Dipu Moni said at the press conference though South Talpatti, an island that was located south of Satkhira in the Bay of Bengal, no longer existed, the part of the sea where it was located had fallen under India’s territory as a result of an international dispute resolution.

“Although its location has fallen under Indian territory due to the verdict, a large area to the south of that is within our territory now,” she said.

The West Bengal government after the cyclone in 1970 had found that an island had emerged at the mouth of the Haribhanga River. \

In 1974, the US released satellite data saying the island had an area of about 2,500 square kilometres.

Bangladesh claimed sovereignty over the island, calling it South Talpatti, and India too made a claim and named it New Moore.

In the early 1980s the conflict over the ownership grew more intense.

In 1979, Bangladesh proposed a joint survey but in 1981 India sent its troops and put its flag on the island.

An independent scientific body called the Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) said in 1990 that the island was eroding. At the end of the ‘90s, the island disappeared back into the ocean.

Asked whether the PCA had given any decision about South Talpatti, Maritimes Affairs Unit Secretary Khurshed Alam said: “You know it was a sandbar landform. In 1970 cyclone it emerged from the sea, and in 1985’s cyclone it disappeared.”

Hearing at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at the Netherlands. Photo: PCA website

“Since 1989 we have been sure that the island doesn’t exist anymore. India has also said New Moore is no more.”

‘Big success’

At the press conference, Khurshed Alam analysed Bangladesh’s achievement from the PCA verdict.

He said Bangladesh got 70,000 sq km out of 80,000 sq km sea area in the dispute with Myanmar and 19,000 sq km out of 25,000 sq km with India.

“Now you evaluate how much we’ve won,” he told reporters.

Foreign Minister Ali said: “A peaceful resolution to a dispute running for more than 40 years since independence has been achieved. Which success is larger than that?”

He said the government was taking measures to utilise the sea areas secured through the arbitration.

He added the foreign ministry was going to organise a two-day international workshop titled ‘Blue economy’ from Sept 1 to this end.