Indo-Bangla maritime dispute

Tribunal –India-Bangladesh/ 28.02.2010

Indo-Bangla maritime dispute
3 required
arbitrators
appointed
ANIS ALAMGIR
The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) recently appointed three arbitrators to settle the maritime disputes between Bangladesh and India.
Talking to The Independent foreign secretary Mijarul Quayes yesterday confirmed the appointment and said that with the new appointments, the tribunal got the required five-member panel, which would finalise the maritime boundary in the Bay of Bengal.
German national Rudiger Wolfrum has been made the chairman of the tribunal while Italian Tullio Treves and Australian Ivan Shearer made the members.
Earlier, Bangladesh appointed British lawyer Vaughan Lowe (QC) and India nominated Srinivasan Rao as its lawyers to the tribunal.
The foreign secretary hoped that the tribunal would bring an end to the long-standing dispute between Dhaka and New Delhi over the claim of 10 oil and gas blocks in the Bay of Bengal.
A foreign ministry official said that the tribunal would settle the disputes within three to four years.
In October last year, Bangladesh declared that it would go to the international tribunal to settle the maritime boundary disputes with India and Myanmar as it failed to resolve the differences through bilateral talks.
Later, in January 8-9 maritime boundary talks in Chittagong, Dhaka and Yangon agreed to resolve the dispute on the principles of ‘equity and equidistance’, but the starting point for demarcating sea boundary between Bangladesh and Myanmar is yet to be settled.
The three neighbors have differences in methods for maritime boundary delimitation.
Dhaka demands for ‘equity’ method, which, it insists, will ensure win-win conditions for Bangladesh, Myanmar and India while India and Myanmar press for ‘equidistance’ principle, which, Dhaka says, will deprive Bangladesh of 17 out of 28 sea blocks.
Of the 17 sea blocks, India makes claim on 10 and Myanmar demands 7 blocks.
India and Myanmar claim the Bay of Bengal in such a way, which would block Bangladesh’s access to sea routes, the sources said.