| Home > South-East Asia >> East Timor | |
UN deadline looms for Australia over Timor Sea dispute
Timor Sea Justice Campaign Media Release - April 30, 2016
The conciliation process – which East Timor is hoping will help force Australia to acknowledge the need to establish permanent maritime boundaries in the Timor Sea – has never been used before.
The compulsory mechanism exists for the rare circumstance in which one country in a dispute refuses to recognise the independent umpire. This is what Australia did two months before East Timor's independence in 2002 when it withdrew its recognition of the maritime boundary jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea.
The Timor Sea Justice Campaign's spokesperson in Melbourne, Tom Clarke, said the Australian Government was facing its comeuppance for decades of short-changing East Timor out of billions of dollars in gas and oil royalties.
"It reflects very poorly on Australia that it has even come to this. East Timor is simply asking for what it's entitled to – permanent maritime boundaries in accordance with current international law – yet the Turnbull Government stubbornly refuses to discuss the matter. Now it will have some explaining to do at the UN," said Mr Clarke.
The compulsory conciliation process will conclude with a panel of experts recommending where permanent maritime boundaries should be set according to current international law. However, the ruling is not binding.
The overwhelming consensus is that under current international law, in circumstances such as these where the two coastlines are less than 400 nautical miles apart, boundaries are drawn halfway between the two coastlines along the 'median line'.
"If the Australian Government had any confidence in its outdated arguments it would not have turned its back on the independent umpire in the first place," said Mr Clarke.
East Timor has consistently asked Australia to commit to bilateral negotiations to establish permanent maritime boundaries, but Australia has consistently refused. Instead it has jostled the tiny nation into a series of temporary deals which all give Australia a share of oil located closer to Timor than Australia.
"By refusing to establish permanent and fair boundaries, Australia is short-changing East Timor out of billions of dollars. It's immoral, it's bad policy and it's embarrassing. We're becoming known as the region's bully. It's time for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to sit down with East Timor's PM and just draw the line," said Mr Clarke.
For further comment, please contact Tom Clarke on 0422 545 763
See also:
 |
Home | Site Map | Calendar & Events | News Services | Links & Resources | Contact Us