New tensions over Greece-Turkey maritime borders
In the media image: Sean Oulashin on Unsplash
The parliament in eastern Libya recently approved the controversial 2019 maritime boundaries agreement between Turkey and Libya, reigniting the decades-long dispute between Greece and Turkey over their maritime borders. Law of the sea expert Hilde Woker discussed the issue on ‘BNR Nieuwsradio’.
Maritime boundaries are important because of their natural resources such as oil and gas, as well as the strategic influence they can offer states. ‘There are plenty of reasons to define your maritime boundaries clearly,’ says Woker. However, when several countries border a relatively small sea, reaching agreement on exactly where those boundaries should lie can be difficult. In addition, Greece and the EU, on the one hand, and Turkey, on the other, have fundamentally different views on how maritime boundaries should be drawn. Turkey, which is not a party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, argues that Greece’s islands are entitled only to a territorial sea and not to an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) or continental shelf. Greece, by contrast, relies on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and customary international law, which maintain that islands are indeed entitled to these maritime rights.
According to Woker, ‘large Greek islands such as Crete and Rhodes are fully entitled to an EEZ and a continental shelf.’ The extent to which these islands would be granted their full entitlements in any delimitation remains an open question. The disagreement begins at a more fundamental level, however: whether there is any overlap in maritime entitlements at all. Maritime boundaries are often delineated using an equidistance line: a line consisting of points that are equally distant from the coasts of the states concerned. But that immediately raises the question: which coast? The coasts of islands such as Crete and Rhodes, or, as Turkey argues, only the Greek mainland? For example, the maritime boundaries agreement between Turkey and Libya runs close to Crete and Rhodes, which would significantly restrict the maritime entitlements of those islands.
In response to Libya’s recent move, Greece has stepped up negotiations with Egypt to strengthen its maritime position. By doing so, Woker says, Greece is letting it be known that it ‘also has rights in the area’ and that Turkey may not unilaterally exploit oil resources while the dispute remains unresolved. Under international law of the sea, states involved in an unresolved maritime boundary dispute are required to exercise restraint, avoid aggravating the dispute, and refrain from actions that could jeopardise its eventual settlement.
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