| Subject: IPS: For East Timor, It's a
Different Set of Boundary Rules
AUSTRALIA: For East Timor, It's a Different Set of Boundary Rules
Bob Burton
CANBERRA, Mar 16 (IPS) - The Australian government has been accused of
hypocrisy in its attempt to draw maritime boundaries with neighbours.
While setting a mid-point boundary with New Zealand, after ratifying a
treaty, Canberra has refused to adopt the same standard with East Timor
where rich oil and gas deposits lie.
Coordinator of the Timor Sea Justice Campaign, Tom Clarke, accused the
Australian government of ''breathtaking hypocrisy'' by adopting different
standards for different nations.
''It seems that Australia wants to adopt one standard which is
consistent with international law to ensure good relations with a
developed western country but rejects exactly the same proposal when it is
made by East Timor,'' he told IPS.
''It is an appalling attempt by the government to try and bully the
region's poorest country into giving up both territory and valuable
resources, even though they are entitled to them under international
law,'' added Clarke.
Under the United National Convention on the Law of the Sea which
Australia and New Zealand are signatories to, both countries are entitled
to claim a continental shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) extending
200 nautical miles.
At a hearing of the Joint Committee on Treaties of the Australian
parliament on Monday, Canberra submitted a ''national interest analysis''
of the treaty between Australia and New Zealand stating that ''the
boundary described in the treaty is a common maritime boundary dividing
both the EEZ and continental shelf of the two countries. It is a fair an
equitable outcome in accordance with the principles of international
law.''
The final treaty, which has been under serious negotiation since 1999,
resolves the overlapping claims which the national interest analysis
states by ''being divided along the line of equidistance between the
nearest points of Australian and New Zealand land territory''.
''The boundaries represent an equitable and fair outcome for
Australia...The settling of the maritime boundaries between Australia and
New Zealand greatly reduces the potential for future disputes and serves
as a model of bilateral co-operation in the region,'' it states.
Appearing before the Senate committee on Monday, William Campbell, the
general counsel for international law in the Attorney-General's Department
said ''Each delimitation has its own unique circumstances so that what is
agreed in one will not necessarily apply in the other. That said the
principles underpinning our New Zealand boundary and those we are
advancing with East Timor are consistent.'' Campbell stated that the
critical issue is the extent of the continental shelf.
It was an argument that bemused the Deputy Chair of the Committee Kim
Wilkie, an opposition Labor member of the House of Representatives.
''This committee considered in detail the Timor Sea Treaty where the
boundaries were of some issue and we were told that we weren't to apply
that particular method (a mid-point boundary) ... Now we are being told
that in the case of New Zealand we have applied those same sort of
conditions in determining those boundaries. You can't have it both ways,''
he said.
Only last week the Australian government refused to discuss a median
line maritime boundary in talks with East Timor. Instead it has proposed
that it defer the resolution of a permanent boundary by up to a hundred
years while the major oil and gas deposits are exhausted.
Canberra proposed that it would make a three to four billion U.S.
dollars one-off payment if East Timor agrees. Critics argue that under the
same standard as adopted with New Zealand, East Timor would stand to gain
more than 40 billion U.S. dollars of gas and oil royalties.
At the conclusion of three days of talks with East Timor last week,
Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer was upbeat.
''I think we've got the framework of an agreement nutted out; we've got
more details still to work through but I think we're making very good
progress with East Timor,'' he added.
The chief negotiator for East Timor, Jose Teixeira, was more
circumspect stating only that a further round of talks would be held soon.
While the Australian government has endorsed a mid-point boundary with
New Zealand as being consistent with international law, in a Feb. 24
briefing for journalists on the Timor sea issues an Australian government
official dismissed East Timor's bid for a mid-point boundary as an ''ambit
claim''.
Australia has frustrated East Timor's ability to seek arbitration on
the maritime boundary by the International Court of Justice by withdrawing
from the courts jurisdiction on the issue just two months before East
Timor gained independence in May 2002.
In the analysis tended to the Senate committee on the New Zealand
treaty, the government stated that the issue of where the boundary of the
continental shelf is only relevant where it continues beyond the 200
nautical miles - which a country may claim as its Exclusive Economic Zone.
Beyond that, it states, a nation may claim up to a maximum of 350 nautical
miles if approved after a submission to the Commission on the Limits of
the Continental Shelf (CLCS), a United Nations agency responsible for
adjudicating international boundaries.
As part of the deal of settling on a mid-point boundary, the Australian
government informed the Senate committee that it would ensure New Zealand
supports Australia's submission to the CLCS seeking a 350 nautical mile
boundary.
Campaigners supporting East Timor's bid for a mid-point sea boundary
argue that Australia has a powerful economic incentive for bullying East
Timor into settling for less than New Zealand.
''It wants to steal billions of dollars worth of oil and gas that, if
international law were to prevail, belongs to the poorest nation in the
region,'' Timor Sea Justice Campaign's Clarke said.
While talks were underway early this month in Canberra between
Australia and East Timor, Australian businessman Ian Melrose renewed a
prime-time television advertising campaign bluntly criticising the
Australian government's negotiating position over the boundary.
''The Howard government has stolen two billion Australian dollars (1.57
billion U.S. dollars) in tax revenue from gas and oil royalties which East
Timor needs to create a working health system,'' stated the advertisement.
The majority of East Timorese live in rural villages, often isolated
and far from medical facilities or hospitals. There are impassable roads
during the wet season, electricity is scant and telecommunications are
next to non-existent. Curable and preventable diseases are life
threatening for most in these circumstances. (END/2005)
[see http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/joint/commttee/J8187.pdf
for transcript of Committee hearing on NZ boundary]
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