UNB, Dhaka :
Verdict of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) Tribunal over the Bangladesh-India maritime boundary dispute is likely to be announced within this month.
Additional Foreign Secretary (UNCLOS) at the Foreign Ministry Khurshid Alam said the specific date of the announcement of verdict has not been fixed yet.
“But the proceedings of the case have been prepared and it was set that the verdict will be announced in June 2014,” he told UNB on Wednesday.
Alam, who is dealing with the maritime boundary issue for last few years, informed that the UNCLOS tribunal is yet to inform Bangladesh about the date of announcement of its verdict.
Bangladesh and neighbouring India have been locked in the maritime boundary disputes over 10 gas blocks in the Bay of Bengal. Both the nations have been claiming the area as their own.
Against the Indian claim, Bangladesh lodged its own claim with the UNCLOS in 2009 and the final hearing of the both sides took place in The Hague in Netherlands in December last year.
The hearing of the case was held at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in Netherlands from December 9-18, 2013 with former Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni and a team of lawyers appointed by Bangladesh taking part.
Khurshid Alam said Bangladesh has made its claim on its maritime area on the basis of ‘equitable’ sharing while India has made its claim on the basis of ‘equidistance’. Bangladesh is very hopeful of wining the verdict in its favour, he added.
Over the course of the hearing, both the parties have presented their position on certain key issues relating to the maritime boundary between the two States, including the location of the land boundary terminus between them, the delimitation of the Territorial Sea, the Exclusive Economic Zone, and the Continental Shelf within and beyond 200 nautical miles.
On October 8, 2009, Bangladesh instituted arbitral proceedings over the delimitation of the maritime boundary between Bangladesh and India pursuant to article 287 and Annex VII, Article 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) acts as registry in this arbitration.
Earlier, Bangladesh won a landmark verdict against Myanmar on March 14, 2012 at the ITLOS and through the verdict, Bangladesh sustained its claim to the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic and territorial rights in the Bay of Bengal.
Before the hearing, Bangladesh submitted the required papers to lay its claim to territorial waters, Exclusive Economic Zone up to 200 nautical miles and Continental Shelf up to 350 nautical miles from the baseline. The PCA has fixed July 31 this year to hear India’s rejoinder on this issue.
The maritime boundary between India and Bangladesh is not delineated. Both the countries co-occupy 180 km of a maritime borderline. There have always been claims and counter-claims and overlapping claims. The issue came to a head after India discovered huge hydrocarbon deposits in the Bay of Bengal.
