Settling the maritime boundaries between Timor-Leste and Australia in the Timor Sea

摘要

On 6 March 2018, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, the representatives of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (Timor-Leste) and the Commonwealth of Australia signed the Treaty between the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste and Australia Establishing their Maritime Boundaries in the Timor Sea (Treaty). This Treaty, assuming ratification by the parties and entry into force, brings to an end a long-standing and bitter dispute between Australia and the new republic of Timor-Leste that has its origins in Australia's treaty relations with Indonesia before Timor-Leste emerged as a fully sovereign state. The terms of the Treaty were brokered by the first compulsory Conciliation Commission to be established under the terms of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC). Some of the most difficult issues that the Conciliation Commission and the negotiators had to deal with pertained to existing oil and gas investments in the area of overlapping maritime claims, as well as the terms for the development of the Sunrise and Troubadour deposits that straddled the 'provisional' delimitation line. This article summarizes the background to the dispute as well as the role of the Conciliation Commission. It then examines in detail the terms of the Treaty including the Annex that establishes the Greater Sunrise Special Regime, the dispute resolution provisions of the Treaty and its transitional provisions.