Dear Colleagues,
The problem of sea level changes, which is relative to land, both because of
the sea level rise phenomena and land vertical movement, causing horisontal
displacement of the low water line, could bring with it legal implications.
In delimiting coastal zones maritime boundaries of Provinces and Districts
in my country (Indonesia), we use the coast line to construct (digital
cartometrically) the boundary to determine the coordinates of the vertices.
The coordinates of the vertices, by Government decree, will define the legal
boundary. Changes of the coastline will so have no legal implications
anymore. This hopefully will solve partially disputes of boundaries and
revenues domestically.
If the UNCLOS is going to be reviewed in 2004, could IBRU not work out a
VISION for delimiting permanent maritime boundaries of different types of
jurisdictions. I do think that definitive coordinates of vertices of
maritime boundaries should be the soulution, not coordinates of
coastline-fixed base-points and base-lines. We are entering an era, or
perhaps are already in it, where sub-meter positioning in mid-ocean could be
done, referenced to 'permanent' international reference frames, such as
WGS84 or ITRF.
I agree with Dan Dzurek statement that baselines should not be revised once
definitively promulgated and accepted by the UN, but many developing
countries are financially and 'time-ly' constrained to define their
definitive baselines in the near future, as 'precise' mapping of low water
coastlines is a complex matter, expensive and time consuming, and so
declared their maritime boundaries only provisionally.
Regards,
Klaas Villanueva
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