Cyprus-Forum.com

[denizaksulu]

Oh, I forgot to add....

Whats with allthis winking. Is this the beginning of a love affair with eric_dayi or are you just lost for words

[EPSILON]

THis was in the news yesterday. Following the melting of polar ice, and the subsequent exposing of land masses the US is thinking of ratifying the Law of the Sea Convention.

The convention defines the territorial waters and exclusive economic zones. The US had not ratified the treaty. The melting of polar ice presents new facts and a race is now on between the nations that border the pole to claim and exploit natural resources.

If the US ratifies the treaty then it will immediately recognise rights afforded by the treaty to other nations, like the 12 mile territorial waters for all states, presumably including Greek territorial waters in the Aegean.

Then Turkey can also claim it's 12 miles of territorial waters, right?

Ha Ha you moron!!!!!! If Turkey expands to 12 miles in the Med then that means Greece does as well! If they do within land closer than 12 miles then they split the difference....the rest though:

Now without 12 miles
Greece circa 45% of Aegean
Turkey circa 7%
Rest International waters

After 12 miles
Greece circa 75%
Turkey 9%
International waters the rest

Nice one Cartman lets do what you say. (unless off course you follow Turkish logic and only increase Turkey's coastline by 12 and threaten with war if Greece does the same.)

It seems that only DT understand how the application of the treaty is works.Greece is requesting application of the treaty long-long time now-

[GreekForumer]

Oh, I forgot to add....

Whats with allthis winking. Is this the beginning of a love affair with eric_dayi or are you just lost for words

Eric understands

[GreekForumer]

6nm


12nm

[CopperLine]

The fact that the USA it seems is about to ratify UNCLOS does not mean anything as far as Greece, Cyprus and Turkey are concerned; that is to say it has no implication for their respective territorial or economic claims.

That Turkey has not ratified UNCLOS doesn't undermine the force of UNCLOS territorial claims for Greece, Cyprus or anywhere else. Failure to sign or ratify a treaty does not give the non-party licence to do whatever it likes. Indeed under international law, non-parties are obliged NOT to frustrate the operation and implementation of multilateral treaty provision.

[denizaksulu]

THis was in the news yesterday. Following the melting of polar ice, and the subsequent exposing of land masses the US is thinking of ratifying the Law of the Sea Convention.

The convention defines the territorial waters and exclusive economic zones. The US had not ratified the treaty. The melting of polar ice presents new facts and a race is now on between the nations that border the pole to claim and exploit natural resources.

If the US ratifies the treaty then it will immediately recognise rights afforded by the treaty to other nations, like the 12 mile territorial waters for all states, presumably including Greek territorial waters in the Aegean.

Then Turkey can also claim it's 12 miles of territorial waters, right?

Ha Ha you moron!!!!!! If Turkey expands to 12 miles in the Med then that means Greece does as well! If they do within land closer than 12 miles then they split the difference....the rest though:

Now without 12 miles
Greece circa 45% of Aegean
Turkey circa 7%
Rest International waters

After 12 miles
Greece circa 75%
Turkey 9%
International waters the rest

Nice one Cartman lets do what you say. (unless off course you follow Turkish logic and only increase Turkey's coastline by 12 and threaten with war if Greece does the same.)

It seems that only DT understand how the application of the treaty is works.Greece is requesting application of the treaty long-long time now-

If DT could expand on his abbreviated sentences we could all understand what he is saying. Could you please explain in an intelligible manner to clarify your meaning. I might have the gist of what you are trying to say but like to be sure.

Thank you

[CopperLine]

Here are some extracts from a recent article which may be informative to you :

For more than thirty years, Greece has been insisting that its only dispute with Turkey is of a legal nature and is related to the delimitation of the continental shelf of the Aegean Sea. But for more than twenty-five years the concept of the continental shelf has been overshadowed by the concept of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Since the beginning of the new Convention of the Law of the Sea (CLOS) in 1982, not a single country has requested delimitation of its continental shelf along with the simultaneous delimitation of the EEZ.

The Turks are delighted because they hear the Greek government and all the Greek political parties discussing only the continental shelf without ever mentioning the EEZ. The main reason, of course, for this great elation is that they know that Greece could gain much from the delimitation of the EEZ in the Aegean Sea. Figuratively speaking, the Turks are putting their heads in the sand while the Greeks have blinders on and continually mention only the continental shelf.

This held true until recently, when Cyprus decided to sign an agreement with Egypt for delimitation of the EEZs of the two countries, and then to commence oil exploration in the Cypriot EEZ. The Greek government seems to agree with and support the Cypriot position. At the same time, the Greeks are completely in the dark about the concept of the EEZ because they have never openly articulated this new concept of the Law of the Sea. The main reason for the Greek-Turkish dispute is the existence of oil in the Aegean Sea, yet Greek governments have never asked for delimitation of the EEZ [End Page 56] in the Aegean. Now, the Cypriot initiative brings to the forefront this great Greek omission, and it puts Turkey in a very difficult position since it does not wish to mention the EEZ, which could be detrimental to the interests of Turkey in the Mediterranean.

The position taken by Turkey is not a surprise, because Turkey was opposed to the concept of the EEZ as well as its inclusion in the final document of the 1982 convention. On 30 April 1982, a final vote took place in New York for the new CLOS. The results were 130 in favor, 4 against, and 17 abstentions. Turkey was upset with this convention, and it was one of four countries that voted against it. Greece, on the other hand, was almost completely satisfied with the benefits of the new constitution for the oceans and voted in favor of the convention.

........

The 1982 convention drastically changed the maritime boundaries in the Mediterranean. The most important changes include the following:

1. Every Mediterranean state has the right to extend the limits of its territorial sea to twelve miles.
2. The contiguous zone may be increased from the former twelve nautical miles to twenty-four nautical miles.
3. The concept of an EEZ, if adopted in the Mediterranean, would subject the whole sea to the jurisdiction of the coastal states.
4. The 1982 convention makes considerable changes in the right of free transit in international straits. A new concept of "transit passage" has been [End Page 59] introduced, which cannot be suspended by the coastal states and applies also to aircraft.6

One of the new terms of the convention that does not apply to the Mediterranean is that of archipelagic states. The 1982 convention established that the term archipelago refers to a group of islands and interconnecting waters that are closely interrelated and form an intrinsic geographical, political, and economic entity. In the Mediterranean, only the Maltese islands would qualify under the above definition, and even in that case its archipelagic waters would be quite small.7

One of the ironies of the CLOS was the fact that the above definition prevented Greece, with its numerous islands in the Aegean Sea, from using this concept.

......

Six Mediterranean countries—Croatia, Egypt, France, Morocco, Slovenia, and Spain—have proclaimed two-hundred-mile EEZs. Most Mediterranean countries have not established two-hundred-mile claims not only because of the difficulty of delimitation but also because of the assumption that the Mediterranean Sea is not richly endowed in terms of living resources.

.......

All extracts from "A Greek Exclusive Economic Zone in the Aegean Sea"
Theodore C. Kariotis in Mediterranean Quarterly 18:3 2007


By the way, how do you include an image (map) in a post ? There are two images from this article which are very helpful to see what is at stake.[/img]

[CopperLine]

Warning : UNCLOS is a legal minefield. There are strong reasons why it has take so long to negotiate and so long for states to sign and then ratify : it is riddled with serious problems and is not only almost impenetrable as a text it is also probably the most boring document ever produced.

[utu]

It might be more honest to rename the Agean Sea the Hellenic Sea. It would at least be more accurate, given the amount of Greek territory there.

[CopperLine]

Below are the two maps from the Kariotis article I mentioned :

Figure 1 depicts clearly the EEZ of Greece based on the Convention of the Law of the Sea. Turkey faces a big problem, and the figure helps us understand why it does not want to negotiate the delimitation of the EEZ in the Aegean archipelago with Greece. [End Page 69]





Figure 2 depicts the size of the EEZ of Turkey in the Aegean and the Mediterranean Seas. This map clearly indicates that Turkey does not have any sea boundaries with Egypt.