DELIMITATION OF MARITIME BOUNDARIES OF BANGLADESH

Abstract

Bangladesh, India, Myanmar and Sri Lanka are four littoral countries of the Bay of Bengal.
As soon as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea III came into force in 1982, these
countries acquired the right to submit their claims to different portions of the Bay of Bengal in the
sea water, the sea bed and the sub-soil areas that consist of living and non living entities and sea bed
resources including oil, gas or mineral resources beneath the sea bed. The deadline for submission of
claims to the Committee on the limitation of Continental Shelf by Bangladesh is 2011 whereas that
for the other three countries is 2009. Before UNCLOS 82 came into being, Bangladesh held several
meetings with India and Myanmar to demarcate its maritime boundary, but no agreement could be
reached in demarcating the overlapping portion of the claims submitted by these countries. It is most
likely that a similar disagreement may occur again after submission of claims tabled by these states to
the CLCS in the stipulated time. This article analyzes legal and technical aspects of maritime claims
as per the provisions of UNCLOS 82, determine the maximum permissible claims that can be
made on behalf of Bangladesh and the possible claims conceivable of other littoral states and submit
suggestions and recommendations for possible solutions for future delimitation scheme.