'Bay is Ours,' read the headline of Bangladesh's Daily Star the day after the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) released its verdict on a maritime boundary dispute – the court's first case of the kind – between Bangladesh and Burma. The Bangladeshi press had a rather optimistic interpretation of the ruling, which pertains to some 283,500 square kilometres of the Bay of Bengal. In reality the verdict was a split decision: the tribunal sided with Burma on some issues and with Bangladesh on others. But the verdict gives both countries the green light to pursue their top priority – accessing offshore oil and gas resources in the Bay of Bengal.
Burma and Bangladesh first opened negotiations over their maritime boundary in 1974. They continued talking on and off for almost 35 years, including a two decade break that only ended in 2007. The resumption of talks in the late 2000s came because both countries were anxious to settle the dispute so that each could start offshore exploration for natural gas. Tensions flared in late 2008 when an exploration ship operating under a concession granted by the Burmese government sailed into disputed waters. Bangladesh sent warships to the area, and the exploration ship returned to Burmese waters.
The incident pushed the maritime boundary to the top of the bilateral agenda. The two countries talked frequently through most of 2009, but with little progress. In late 2009 Bangladesh submitted a letter to Burma asking to take the maritime boundary dispute to binding arbitration. Burma responded by asking to petition an unusual decision-making body – the ITLOS. In such disputes, countries most commonly apply to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but Burma seemed reluctant to go before ICJ for any reason, even a boundary dispute. Bangladesh agreed, and the dispute became the first to be heard by the comparatively less overburdened ITLOS.
Bangladesh feared that the deeply concave shape of the Bay of Bengal would limit its maritime claims to a small wedge-shaped portion of the bay. Burma was fearful that this same concavity would mean a boundary line that unfairly disadvantaged its maritime claims. Both sides worked on their legal arguments and submitted a series of briefs throughout 2010 and 2011, and oral arguments were made in September 2011. After about six months of deliberation, the ITLOS issued a decision that created, after some manoeuvring around coastal features, a line heading southwest (at 215 degrees) away from the coasts of Bangladesh and Burma. Bangladesh was awarded 111,600 square kilometres, or just under 40% of the total relevant area as defined by the ITLOS; Burma was awarded 171,800 square kilometres, just over 60% of the total. While Burma was awarded a larger area, the proportion of awards is largely in line with the length of each country's relevant coastline, in keeping with one of the ITLOS's key criteria for determining if a ruling is fair.