Alexander Downer’s other victim
ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΑΡΘΡΑ
By Prof. Theodore Kariotis
Reading several stories on East Timor, the poorest country in Asia, I learned that it faces a major problem regarding its maritime borders with Australia. Also seeing that Alexander Downer, former Foreign Minister of Australia, fancies himself an expert on matters of the Law of the Sea, I decided to investigate the issue further.
In the process, I discovered that Downer has mistreated one of the world’s poorest nations, not allowing it to receive its due benefits, which stem from the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Throughout his tenure as Australia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Downer exhibited greed as well as lack of good faith towards the poverty stricken people of East Timor. In fact, in complete violation of UNCLOS, he tried to get an even better deal for his country regarding oil and gas in the Timor Sea.
Before proceeding further, we should first put forth a brief history of this complex issue. East Timor declared its independence from Portugal in 1975 and was invaded by Indonesia shortly thereafter. In 2002, after the death of President Suharto, East Timor was proclaimed an independent nation, having to deal early on with Alexander Downer, Australia’s longest serving Foreign Minister, who served from March 1996 to December 2007. The government of East Timor knew what to expect, since all requests for new negotiations of its maritime boundary with Australia were arrogantly turned down by Alexander Downer, who stated that “Australia has no desire to unscramble the omelet” of any of its previously agreed boundaries.
The Indonesia-Australia seabed boundary treaty was signed in Canberra in December 1972, and was based on the concept of natural prolongation of the continental shelf. At the time, an Indonesian official had stated: “We were taken to the cleaners.” Though Downer bears no responsibility for the unfair maritime boundary that exists today, he made no attempt to improve the boundary in favor of East Timor. The aforementioned agreement, however, was signed years before UNCLOS, which created the concept of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), making obsolete the concept of natural prolongation. Looking through material for Downer’s position on matters of the Law of the Sea, I was not surprised to learn that his positions are identical to those of Turkey in its maritime conflict with Greece and Cyprus. As the map below indicates, East Timor has lost a large portion of its EEZ to Australia, and wants to negotiate a new maritime border based on the concept of equidistance, which has received broad support from many coastal states and, in fact, 90% of the world’s cases are delimited on this basis. Alexander Downer opposes the concept of equidistance, supporting the concepts of “special circumstances” and “equity”.
The map below clearly shows the illegal maritime boundary, which the wealthy nation of Australia has carried out against the poor state of East Timor. Established in agreement with Indonesia, these borders remain as Australia’s maritime borders with East Timor.
On the map above, we can see that the median line lies (pink color) where the maritime boundary of the EEZ of the two countries should be. The light brown area is the main area which Downer had refused to give to East Timor. Though Australia was for a while considering withdrawing from UNCLOS, it chose to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) instead, in order to protect its interests regarding the delimitation of its maritime boundary with East Timor.
Alexander Downer was the architect of this greedy mistreatment of one of the poorest island states on planet Earth. East Timor was abandoned by the world for years. Will it be abandoned again in the name of greed? Now that we know that Alexander Downer feigns expertise on UNCLOS, the world would be wise to be cautious of the designs he’s got up his sleeve for the EEZ of Cyprus.
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