Hague Tribunal Rules Over Barbados/Trinidad Maritime Dispute

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

14 April 2006

The Hague Permanent Court of Arbitration has ruled mostly in favour of Trinidad and Tobago in a dispute with Barbados over the two countries' maritime boundary under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Said the Court: 'The Award, which includes a finding of jurisdiction to consider the Parties’ maritime delimitation claims, establishes a single maritime boundary between Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago that differs from the boundaries claimed by each of the Parties in their pleadings before the Arbitral Tribunal. The boundary for the most part follows the equidistance line between Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, but, in its eastern, Atlantic sector, adjusts that
line to take account of the coasts of Trinidad and Tobago that abut upon the area of overlapping claims.'

The Arbitral Tribunal said however that it lacked jurisdiction to render a substantive decision about a fisheries regime to apply inside Trinidad and Tobago’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Nonetheless, it found that Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados are under a duty to agree upon the measures necessary to co-ordinate and ensure the conservation and development of flyingfish stocks, and to negotiate in good faith and conclude an agreement that will accord fisherfolk of Barbados access to fisheries within the Exclusive Economic Zone of Trinidad and Tobago, subject to the limitations and conditions of that agreement and to the right and duty of Trinidad and Tobago to conserve and manage the living resources of waters within its jurisdiction.

Proceedings before the Court were initiated by Barbados on 16 February 2004; hearings were held in London in
October 2005. Barbados had sought a more extensive maritime and economic zone after fishing disputes, and a spat over the routing of a gas pipeline between Trinidad and Venezuela.

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