Protesters in Dili in March
demanded that Australia negotiate over the Timor Sea boundary. Photo: Wayne
Lovell, Timor Photography
The ruling against
China over the South China Sea may bring home some uncomfortable truths for the
Australian government.
Understandably the Turnbull
government wishes China would heed the international law of the sea and
unreservedly accept this week's ruling from the Permanent Court of Arbitration
in The Hague – the result of a complaint brought by the Philippines against
China's activities in the South China Sea.
Of course our Foreign
Affairs Minister, Julie Bishop, would have far more credibility in calling
on China to respect international law if successive Australian governments
weren't guilty of similar maritime misconduct.
For 14 years now,
Australia's tiny neighbour, East Timor, has been consistently requesting
Australia to negotiate the establishment of permanent maritime boundaries
between the two coastlines. For 14 years now, Australia has refused to
even consider doing so.
Instead it has jostled East Timor
into a series of temporary resource sharing arrangements, all of which
short-change one of the poorest countries in Asia out of billions of dollars in
oil and gas resources.
To think China is the only bully
in our region willing to thumb its nose to international law for greater
territorial control and access to lucrative resources would be to overlook the
fact the Australian government has unilaterally depleted the contested
Laminaria Corallina oil fields. These are fields that the East Timorese claimed
belong to them, that have now been sucked dry without East Timor receiving a
single dollar.
This is something the government
of East Timor doesn't want to see repeated. It has launched its own proceedings
in the United Nations.
Disappointingly, the Australian
government, like China before it, is squabbling about the jurisdiction – trying
to dismiss the independent umpire as irrelevant.
Bishop and Prime
Minister Malcolm Turnbull need to realise that if Australia wants its
calls for China to abide by the UN Convention on the Law of Sea
(UNCLOS) to be taken seriously, that the Australian government must start
walking the talk.
In March 2002, just two months
before East Timor's independence, the Howard government's Foreign
Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, pre-emptively withdrew Australia's
recognition of the maritime boundary jurisdiction of the International Court of
Justice. It's time for Bishop to reinstate our recognition of this important
body.
A rules-based world order is in
Australia's interest. But the first step in making that a reality is to stop
treating international law like a buffet menu from which you can just pick and
choose the bits you want and discard anything you don't like the look of.
The Australian government must
sit down at the negotiating table with East Timor and right the deliberate
wrongs that have deprived the young nation from benefiting from its own natural
resources.
Take for example the Greater
Sunrise gas field. It's anticipated to generate about $40 billion in government
revenue over its lifetime. As it is located much closer to East Timor than
Australia, if permanent maritime boundaries were established in keeping with
international law most, if not all, of the field would belong to East Timor.
It was during negotiations about
this field that the Australian government installed listening devices in the
East Timorese cabinet room. It used an aid project as the cover to conduct
espionage for commercial gain. This is not something Australians can be proud
of and again is something more in keeping with what you'd expect from the
Chinese Government.
The overwhelming consensus is
that current international law would see maritime boundaries based along the
median line – that means halfway between the two coastlines. This would be both
fair and commonsense. It would mean if an oil or gas field was located closer
to East Timor then it would belong to the Timorese and if it was closer to
Australia then it would be ours.
This "median line
solution" is exactly what we agreed to with New Zealand in 2006 when we
resolved overlapping claims off Norfolk and Macquarie islands. Australian
governments seemingly find international law easier to abide by when billions
of dollars worth of oil and gas is not up for grabs.
"Australia supports the
right of all countries to seek to resolve disputes peacefully in accordance
with international law, including UNCLOS," Bishop said in response to the
South China sea dispute, before adding that adherence to international law is
the foundation for peace, stability and prosperity in East Asia.
These are wise words, but they
will continue to ring hollow while the Australian government continues to turn
its back on the independent umpire so it can continue to short-change East
Timor out of billions of dollars in oil revenue.
Tom Clarke is a spokesman for the Timor Sea Justice
Campaign
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