Exploiting the Bay resources

At long last, Bangladesh has settled its disputes over maritime boundary with Myanmar and India. While the country's dispute with Myanmar was resolved by the Germany-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), that with India was finally settled by the Hague-based  Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA). Whether Dhaka has won or lost or Delhi gained or failed has triggered debates among rival political parties in Bangladesh. But such debates are simply meaningless.
In fact, the verdict, binding on both countries, opens the way for Bangladesh to explore the Bay of Bengal for oil and gas.  It earned Bangladesh 19,467 square kilometres out of disputed 25,602-square-kilometre area of overlapping claims with neighbouring India. The country had won a nearly identical maritime dispute with Myanmar at the German-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). The tribunal awarded Bangladesh an area of 70,000 square kilometers against a demand for 80,000 square kilometres.
Bangladesh had at that time lost claims over five out of seven blocks of overlapping claims with Myanmar as the ITLOS delivered its decision forcing Bangladesh to redraw the map for its offshore blocks. It reduced the total number of blocks to 23 from 28. As a result of the two verdicts, Bangladesh can now expect to draw more response from the international oil companies (IOCs).
Both Bangladesh and India accepted the verdicts. Moreover, such judgments cannot be challenged. It is worthwhile to recall the Bangladesh Foreign Minister's remark at a press conference immediately after the judgment. He said both Dhaka and Delhi won! His comments are a pointer to the fact that the Hague-based court had taken stock of interests of both the countries in its arbitration on Indo-Bangladesh dispute.
But whatever Bangladesh got was not Delhi's gift nor did Dhaka give away its sovereign rights over the Bay of Bengal to India because of its friendship. In fact, if one looks back, one could find that both the countries had stood firm on their respective stands, not ready to barter away their Bay interests. That was why Bangladesh had chosen to approach the international courts for settlement as diplomatic efforts for a fair solution failed.
The government has been sincere in resolving the country's maritime disputes. It did spend over Tk 1,000 million in getting what it secured finally after verdicts of the two international courts. It had engaged top legal experts, well-known specialists, to defend its case.   
As a leading expert said, the Bay of Bengal is highly rich in hydrocarbon resources. It was proved by the Indian discoveries in the Krishna Godavari Basins and also by massive oil and gas finds in Myanmar. While official sources quote a figure of 100 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in the region, unofficial estimates put the reserves at 200 trillion cubic feet of gas.
The verdicts have now given Bangladesh sovereign rights to explore, exploit, conserve, and manage living and non-living resources of water column, seabed and subsea strata and economic activities, such as production of energy from water, currents and winds within 200 nautical miles of new Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).  
Bangladesh has exclusive right to carry out fishing in her area of jurisdiction and export to other countries. It can effectively ensure conservation of fish resources by enforcing appropriate regulations about the season for harvesting, types of vessel and equipment that can be used and institute cooperative measures regarding straddling stocks and highly migratory species. Through legislation, it can also ensure that the living resources in the EEZ are not endangered by over exploitation, conservation of dependent and associated species, and sustainable harvesting of species.
The country also has the legal rights to explore nonliving resources of the sea bed and subsoil such as cobalt, copper, manganese, nickel and gas hydrate deposit in the continental shelf.
Crucial will be Bangladesh's next move in going for exploitation of huge Bay resources. As the first move, the National Oceanography Research Institute needs to be fully operationalised shortly to carry out intensive research. Many good decisions were taken by the government in the past, but unfortunately those were later dumped in the files of the bureaucrats. The National Oceanography Research can give the government a scientific and correct direction to turn the Bay of Bengal into Bangladesh's treasure-trove.
Bangladesh had begun its preparations to exploit the Bay resources well before the latest verdict. The government approved on June 30 a law that would further beef up the National Oceanography Research Institute for research into the Bay resources.
One of the main objectives of the National Oceanography Research Institute Act, 2013 is to give the institute a permanent shape which is now running under a project. The previous Awami League government had taken the project in March, 2001 at Ramu in Cox's Bazar to carry out research on extracting marine resources and ensuring their proper use. But its work was stopped by the  government succeeding it for reasons best known to it.
Under the proposed law, there will be a director general who will act as the chief executive of the institute. Besides, there will be a board of directors headed by the Secretary of the Science and Technology Ministry. The board will be formed with the representatives from different ministries and organizations as well as experts in the subject. Apart from conducting research on different related issues, the proposed law has allowed the institute to create manpower on oceanography and advice to the government on the related policy. If needed, it could form one or more than one committee with the experts.
arjayster@gmail.com