Dear list members
Thank you for your various opinions on the LTE conundrum that I circulated a couple of weeks ago.
The responses were unanimous: the LTE belonging to State A is not entitled to a territorial sea by nature of it being within 12M of the island belonging to State B.
My scenario appeared to cause some confusion amongst the learned boundary scholars - mainly due to my simplification of the boundary in an attempt to focus the discussion. My intention was the boundary was an all-purpose EEZ boundary extending to 200M with both states agreeing not to exercise any powers across the boundary; the boundary was negotiated as an simplified equidistance line ignoring small islands and LTEs. A and B have always been mutually independent and there was no act of secession.
The boundary agreement though had the effect of transferring TS from B to A - as the LTE was cut off from its "parent" land, and the TS relating to the island has also been restricted.
The question is not whether State B (in the south - with the island) can claim TS across the boundary from the LTE, but whether State A (in the north - with the LTE but no nearby islands) can claim TS from the LTE by dint of it being within 12M of State B's island.
Ignoring the complexities introduced by list members, the issues raised can be summarised:
Are LTEs territory in themselves? LTEs have never been assigned sovereignty.
A LTE has no status in law other than to act as a basepoint for the TS. Therefore can the LTE be said to "belong" to State A if it is outside the TS limit drawn from A's mainland/islands?
Art 13/2 says that LTEs do not have a TS of their own if they are more than 12M from the mainland or an island. But could "an island" be any island?
Because this situation is on either side of an agreed boundary the question of "grey" areas is not applicable - but might be if the boundary were to terminate at 12M.
Many problems would be resolved if the heretical suggestion of a high water line were to be taken as the TS baseline!
Thank you all for your interesting comments.
Robin
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Dr Robin Cleverly
Law of the Sea Officer
UK Hydrographic Office
Taunton
Somerset TA1 2DN
UK
Tel: +44 1823 337900 x 3063#
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