Int'l court's judgment in March
The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) is expected to give its judgment in March next year on the dispute concerning delimitation of maritime boundary between Bangladesh and Myanmar in the Bay of Bengal.
“The judgment on the case concerning delimitation of the territorial sea, the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf within and beyond 200 nautical miles (NM) is expected in March 2012”, said Judge Shunji Yanai, newly elected President of ITLOS, while addressing the UN General Assembly on December 6.
Yanai, in his annual speech, referred this case as the tribunal's first delimitation case, said a press release of ITLOS.
He described the two-year period from inception to judgment on the case as a “reasonable duration for a maritime delimitation case.”
India and Myanmar have unlawfully cut off a significant portion of Bangladesh's maritime area in the Bay of Bengal. The two neighbours have drawn line in the Bay in such a way that they apparently sandwiched Bangladesh, sources in Dhaka said.
Having disputes with the two countries on "natural prolongation of the continental shelf and the baseline", Bangladesh lodged objections with the UN regarding the claims of India and Myanmar on October 8, 2009.
The objection to Myanmar's claim was lodged with ITLOS headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.
In the final hearing on the case in September, Bangladesh claimed delimitation of the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf within 200 NM (1 NM = 1.852 kilometers) and the shelf extending up to 400-460 NM southwards from the country's coastline.
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