By Devirupa Mitra
New Delhi, Dec 13 (IANS) Their relations are improving, but India and Bangladesh are yet to agree on the composition of a tribunal to resolve their old maritime dispute that is impacting offshore oil exploration.

India and Bangladesh have held two rounds of talks on demarcation of maritime boundary in September 2008 and March 2009. It was the allotment of offshore blocks by Bangladesh to multinationals ConocoPhillips and Tullow which led to the aggravation of the dispute. India and Myanmar asked the companies to desist from oil explorations, leading Bangladesh to approach the UN.

Bangladesh sent a notice to India and Myanmar in October, initiating arbitration under the UN Convention on Law of the Seas (UNCLOS), for delineation of the boundary of the continental shelf in the Bay of Bengal. While two members of the tribunal have been nominated by India and Bangladesh, the two countries have exchanged a list of names to decide the remaining three members. Incidentally, the deadline of 60 days to set up the bench ended Dec 8.

As the initiator, Bangladesh first nominated Alan Vaughan Lowe, a former Chichele Professor of Public International Law in the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.

Thereafter, India nominated P. Sreenivasa Rao in mid-November. A former legal advisor to the external affairs ministry, Rao has not only been a long-term member of the International Law Commission but has also been an ad-hoc judge of the International Court of Justice when it arbitrated a maritime row between Singapore and Malaysia.

“The remaining three are supposed to be agreed by mutual consent,” a senior Indian official told IANS on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

If the two countries did not take a decision within 60 days of the first notice (Oct 8), then the president of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea would make the appointments.

Just a day before the deadline ended, India got a list of three names from Bangladesh, which included two current judges of the International Court of Justice and a professor. While two of them are from Africa, one is a European.

“We decided not to accept the names. Instead, we have given them our own list,” said the official. “Now, it’s up to Bangladesh. Basically, we want to have a meeting with them.”

Indian officials were quite perplexed at the delay of over two months by Bangladesh in providing the three names, as it had been keen while initiating the arbitration process.

Incidentally, India had given it a reminder during their home secretary-level meeting on Dec 1-2.

India had presented a submission on May 11 to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf on its claims on the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles in only three areas - the eastern offshore region in the Bay of Bengal, western offshore region of the Andaman Islands and the western offshore region in the Arabian Sea.

For the first time since independence in 1947, the external affairs ministry issued a gazette notification in May delineating the baseline marking the beginning of India’s maritime jurisdiction. The delineation of the baseline was the source of the dispute among India, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Taking the plea that it has an unstable coast, Bangladesh has computed its baseline as 10 fathoms from the shore, which conflicts with the claims of its neighbours.

After sending the notice to both India and Myanmar, Bangladesh also sent a letter to the United Nations Oct 29 stating that there was a dispute in the Bay of Bengal region.

Incidentally, Myanmar had also sent a notice on India’s submission to the UN Convention. It stated that India’s continental shelf submission should be considered “without prejudice” to Myanmar’s own claims and it was ready for bilateral talks for limitation of boundary beyond 200 nautical miles.

(Devirupa Mitra can be contacted at devirupa.m@ians.in)