A Bryde’s whale and seagulls feed on anchovies in the Gulf of Thailand, where Cambodia and Thailand are embroiled in a maritime boundary dispute. (EPA Images pic)
BANGKOK: Cambodia is betting on a little-used UN arbitration process known as “compulsory conciliation” to resolve a long-running maritime boundary dispute with Thailand and unlock what it says are billions of dollars in potential oil and gas resources.
What is the Cambodia-Thailand dispute about?
For more than 25 years, Cambodia and Thailand have both laid claim to about 26,000 sq km of sea in the Gulf of Thailand.
The disputed maritime belt is estimated to hold nearly 12 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and large quantities of oil with a value of about US$300 billion.
In 2001, the Southeast Asian neighbours signed a pact, which sought to develop a framework to jointly exploit the energy resources in the so-called “overlapping claims area”.
Thailand’s government, however, last month unilaterally terminated the agreement with Cambodia – fulfilling an election pledge made by Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, following two rounds of deadly conflict along a disputed land border last year.
What is compulsory conciliation?
On Tuesday, Cambodia announced it had launched a compulsory conciliation process under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Compulsory conciliation is a dispute resolution mechanism that any signatory to the convention can initiate against another.
Each country appoints two conciliators to a panel known as the Conciliation Commission, which then selects a fifth member to act as chair.
The commission will investigate the facts and legal position of each state to deliver a set of non-binding recommendations, which are also sent in a report to the UN secretary general.
Has it been used before?
So far, the UN-backed mechanism has only been used by East Timor, also known as Timor Leste, to successfully resolve a decades-long maritime dispute with Australia.
East Timor formally started the process on April 11, 2016 by issuing a notice to Australia, which agreed to join the process only weeks later.
In early March 2018, following less than two years of negotiations, the two countries signed a maritime boundary treaty at the UN headquarters, in the presence of the UN chief.
What is the next process?
Cambodia has delegated its foreign minister, Prak Sokhonn, to act as its agent for the proceedings, while also appointing Danish diplomat Peter Taksøe-Jensen and French academic Jean-Marc Thouvenin to the Conciliation Commission.
Taksøe-Jensen chaired the commission that undertook the negotiations between East Timor and Australia.
Thailand has 21 days from receiving the notice to appoint its conciliators, failing which Cambodia can request the UN Secretary General to appoint them on Bangkok’s behalf, according to a Cambodian government statement.
Thailand’s Anutin said on Tuesday he was not aware that Cambodia had initiated the compulsory conciliation process, adding that his government would utilise UNCLOS principles in its next actions.
Thailand has not yet determined when it will proceed further, he told reporters.
After four members of the commission are appointed, they are to pick a chairperson within 30 days, before starting on further proceedings.
