By All Means Necessary by Levi Michael Economy Elizabeth

Author:Levi, Michael, Economy, Elizabeth [Levi, Michael, Economy, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2014-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

Law to the Rescue?

Many hope that international law will impose a resolution to the conflicts over resource ownership. This would, however, be a strong departure from historical precedent. (Moreover, even if international law were applied, it would not remove the potential for intense territorial conflict.) Despite the existence of extensive rules regarding the demarcation of EEZs in international waters, there is actually little experience with using international law to settle disputes over offshore oil and gas ownership.

For example, Qatar and Iran, though both parties to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), settled their dispute over the boundaries between their respective claims within the massive Pars gas field through a bilateral agreement signed in 1969.50 Perhaps the greatest progress in dividing up resources has come among the states bordering the Caspian Sea. But even this has seen only mixed success, and pairs of countries have generally negotiated directly rather than working through international law.51

If the countries of the South and East China Seas regions somehow agreed to use UNCLOS to adjudicate boundaries, then a second challenge would arise: it is ambiguous. Japan and China, which have both ratified the UNCLOS, define their territorial claims in the East China Sea using UNCLOS measures but rely on different measures from the convention: in December 2012, China submitted a claim to the UN Commission on the Limits of Continental Shelf (a body established by UNCLOS) detailing how the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands are situated in the zone encompassed by China’s continental shelf, which it asserts is a “natural prolongation of China’s land territory.”52 In principle, a successful claim over the islands would allow China to establish zones of 200 nautical mile radius extending from every islet. Japan has similarly focused on the fact that the islands are within the “exclusive economic zone extending westward from its southern Kyushu and Ryukyu islands”—and could apply similar principles.53 If the commission agreed that the continental shelf expanse is part of an extension of China’s land territory, this would give China a useful tool in arguing its claim over the islands. But even though the UN commission assesses “the scientific validity of claims, ” it does not have any authority to resolve disputes. Ultimate responsibility for territorial resolution falls back on China and Japan.54

Given the sometimes-contradictory claims to various South China Sea islands and maritime zones, it should not be surprising that, as in the East China Sea, delineating maritime boundaries in the South China Sea is complex—and also that UNCLOS does not offer much help. Some maritime divisions have been reasonably settled. For example, Thailand and Vietnam came to agreement in 1977 about the division between their EEZ and continental shelf boundary in the South China Sea/Gulf of Thailand area.55 Similarly, Indonesia and Vietnam agreed to a continental shelf boundary in 2003.56 But the South China Sea islands remain hotly contested, and even though the Philippines brought its territorial dispute with China before an arbitral tribunal under UNCLOS in January 2013, China has reportedly refused to accept international arbitration.

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