June 12, 2004

Tribunal set up to hear maritime boundary case
Guyana Chronicle

The Arbitral Tribunal under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea has now been established to hear the case between Guyana and Suriname with regard to their disputed maritime boundary.

The President of the Tribunal is Judge Dolliver Nelson and the other members are Dr. Kamal Hossain, Dr. Allan Phillip, Professor Thomas Franck and Professor Hans Smit.

According to Foreign Affairs Minister Dr. Rudy Insanally, Judge Nelson is the President of the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) and Professors Franck and Smit were the arbitrators named initially by Guyana and Suriname, respectively.

The parties will shortly be agreeing on arrangements for establishing the Registry for the Arbitration and are already working together to propose agreed Rules of Procedure for submission to the Tribunal at its upcoming inaugural meeting.

Minister Insanally said provisional mesures are among the matters that would be reviewed by the legal team after the initial meeting with the Tribunal. The application for provisional measures can be made at any time in the process, he said.

Among those measures was a request for CGX, the Canadian oil exploration company, to return if it so wishes and the normal practice of fishing in the Corentyne River should not be affected while the boundary dispute is being addressed by the Tribunal.

The establishment of the Tribunal marks the phase where opposition has been settled, Minister Insanally pointed out.

The next stage will include submissions of both Suriname and Guyana following on their initial submissions. The case will constitute the material that the Arbitrators will have to look at, among other things, he explained.