Canberra – Australia staked its claim Tuesday to its vast undersea continental shelf, asking the United Nations to grant it rights to minerals and other resources under a tract equivalent to almost half the country's land mass.
The claim came as Australia and East Timor continue negotiations over the maritime boundary that divides them, with ownership of billions of dollars worth of undersea oil and gas reserves at stake.
The government said it was claiming an area covering 3.4 million square kilometers – potentially the world's largest such entitlement.
Under a 1983 UN convention, a coastal nation can claim the resources of its continental shelf outside its 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone provided there is geographical or geological continuity of the seabed.
"It is in Australia's interests to gain legal certainty on the outer limits of these areas, which give Australia exclusive rights to explore, exploit and conserve the natural resources of the relevant seabed areas," the government said in a statement.
Canberra says the request to the United Nations has nothing to do with its negotiations with East Timor.
Dili disputes Canberra's claim to the Timor Sea bed to the end of Australia's continental shelf which comes closer to the East Timor coast than Australia. Dili argues the border should run midway between the two countries.
In 2002, Australia withdrew from the international tribunal governing the Law of the Sea, so that the court could not finally decide the dispute.
"We've always argued that our territory is based on the continental shelf so this doesn't change anything in terms of the Timor Sea," a spokesman for Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on usual condition of anonymity. "The East Timor negotiations are ongoing."
Don Rothwell, director of the Sydney Center for International and Global Law, agreed that the submission likely would have little if any impact on the Timor Sea border dispute because of East Timor's overlapping claim to its own continental shelf of at least 200 nautical miles.
The Australian submission to the United Nations will be examined by an international body of experts, the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, starting early next year.
Downer's spokesman said Australia's withdrawal from the tribunal in 2002 would have no impact on this process.
The terms of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea required Australia to make the submission by November 16, 2004, the 10th anniversary of its entry into force for Australia. Australia's submission is the third on the commission's books following similar applications from the Russia and Brazil.
East Timor's ambassador in Canberra was not immediately available for comment on the plan.