Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque :
Bangladesh victory over maritime boundary dispute with India is really a monumental achievement. We won the legal battle after the last one with Myamar. The Permanent Court of Arbitration at Hague in Netherlands has awarded Bangladesh 19,467 square-kilometres out of total 25,602 square-kilometres disputed area with India in the Bay of Bengal. “According to the verdict, Bangladesh has finally won more than 1,18,813 square kilometers of waters comprising territorial sea, exclusive economic zone extending out to 200 nautical mile (NM) across sizable area,” Earlier, the previous victory came on 14 March 2012 when the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in Homburg delivered the judgment in the maritime boundary case with Myanmar.
According to the rules of procedures of the case, if any party needs any interpretation of the verdict, it can make a request to the court within 30 days of receiving the verdict and the interpretation would be made available within 45 days. The international tribunal handed the copy of the verdict over to the high commissions of Bangladesh and India in the Hague.
Immediately after assuming power in 2009, the Awami League-led government had made a political decision to resolve the maritime dispute with India through an international court as Dhaka and New Delhi could not come to a solution in the past 40 years. In 2009, Bangladesh also initiated the arbitral process to settle maritime delimitation dispute with Myanmar in the same court. The case was, however, shifted to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (Itlos) upon request from Myanmar.
The verdict thus has served to ring down a curtain over protracted legal battle over the bone of contention so far as maritime boundary is concerned. It may be recalled that Indian High Commision and Burmese Ambassdor were summoned to to the foreign ministry and handed the notifications to pass on to their governments. This initiated the arbitration before a tribunal at United Nations to be constituted in accordance with the principles and rules of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea(UNCLOS). All the parties t – a dispute are parties to this Convetion.
With this grand victory due largely to bold initiative of the government of Bangladesh we have established our claim on legitimate share of sea and sea resources. This will arouse our enthusing all with our unequivocal committment to state sovereingty. our think tanks to perceive sechemes of the exploration of resorces at deep sea and non-deep sea within the maritme boundary thus settled.
The ITLOS also sustained Bangladesh’s claims to a full 200 nautical miles exclusive economic zone in the Bay of Bengal, and to a substantial share of the outer continental shelf beyond 200 miles. According to news paper reports on the relative reactions of government and BNP BNP was raising the issue of Talpatty Island to undermine the present government’s long-awaited success with the maritime victory over India. ‘A former BNP minister has said Bangladesh has not got the Talpatti Island. I think he should be sent to the Bay of Bengal to find it out,’ she said while addressing the officials of the Women and Children Affairs Ministry during her visit to the ministry in the morning. Hasina said, there is no existence of the island now, but ill efforts are being made to undermine the government’s success in the maritime victory. ‘BNP was in the state power for five years, but it did not perform its responsibility properly on this issue ‘She expressed her doubt saying Bangladesh would not have brought this historic success in the maritime boundary from India, had Awami League not won the last January 5 elections. Terming the maritime victory against India and Mynamar as a grand success of her government, Hasina reiterated her determination to make the best utilisation of the resources to be earned through this win. The prime minister said a maritime law was enacted in parliament when the government of father of the nation Bangabandhu Shekh Mujibur Rahman was in power in 1974 to establish the rights of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal.
‘This victory came as a result of the longstanding efforts of the Awami League governments so far,’
(Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque, Professor, Department of Public Administration, Chittagong University, Bangladesh.)
