Maritime Delimitation in the Barents Sea and International Practice in Maritime Delimitation

• Main Authors: Filipek, Michal Jan, Hruzdou, Dzmitry
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Nauk Prawnych PAN 2011
• Subjects: droit; scipo; Arctic; Svalbard; Barents Sea; Norway
• Online Access: https://bibliotekanauki.pl/articles/706802.pdf; https://bibliotekanauki.pl/articles/706802

International legal practice provides that final delimitation should correspond to the notion of justice, but at the same time there are no explicit methods for delimitation of international maritime areas, the median line method being only one among others. In most cases the parties agree on points with lines derived from the median, or other types of lines guided only by the rationale of fair delimitation. The delimitation process in the Barents Sea concerns the issue of delimitation between the Arctic coastal states and the factors that should be included in the course of this process, as well the range of other international legal problems, such as the status of the Svalbard and its adjacent maritime areas. This article presents the background of the maritime boundary dispute between Norway and Russia and examines the 2010 Barents Sea Delimitation Treaty, discussing its key features in light of international maritime delimitation practice. The 2010 Russian-Norwegian Treaty defined the maritime borders of the Barents Sea between Norway and Russia in a compromise fashion, including solutions on fishery issues and maritime cooperation, but it did not resolve all the issues linked to the delimitation, especially status of the Svalbard maritime area.