Under the Timor Sea Treaty of 2002, Australia and the newly independent East Timor have agreed upon joint development of the petroleum resources of the disputed Timor Gap. Until this treaty comes into force, an Exchange of Notes applies the terms of the 1989 Timor Gap Treaty, with Australia and East Timor as the implementing parties. Since gaining independence, East Timor has argued that under current principles of international law, it is entitled to a greater share of the Timor Sea's oil and gas resources than is suggested by the boundaries of the Timor Sea Treaty's Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA). Principally, East Timor asserts that the western and eastern lines defining the JPDA are ill-founded at international law, a claim that has immediate implications for the joint venture partners in the Greater Sunrise fields that straddle the JPDA's eastern boundary. This paper examines the legal background to the Timor Gap dispute, the agreements that have regulated resource exploitation of the area since 1989, the validity of the respective seabed rights of Indonesia, Australia and East Timor and finally, the impact of Australia's recent withdrawal of maritime boundary disputes from the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.
{"title":"The New Timor Sea Treaty and Interim Arrangements for Joint Development of Petroleum Resources of the Timor Gap","authors":"G. Triggs, D. Bialek","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.423323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.423323","url":null,"abstract":"Under the Timor Sea Treaty of 2002, Australia and the newly independent East Timor have agreed upon joint development of the petroleum resources of the disputed Timor Gap. Until this treaty comes into force, an Exchange of Notes applies the terms of the 1989 Timor Gap Treaty, with Australia and East Timor as the implementing parties. Since gaining independence, East Timor has argued that under current principles of international law, it is entitled to a greater share of the Timor Sea's oil and gas resources than is suggested by the boundaries of the Timor Sea Treaty's Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA). Principally, East Timor asserts that the western and eastern lines defining the JPDA are ill-founded at international law, a claim that has immediate implications for the joint venture partners in the Greater Sunrise fields that straddle the JPDA's eastern boundary. This paper examines the legal background to the Timor Gap dispute, the agreements that have regulated resource exploitation of the area since 1989, the validity of the respective seabed rights of Indonesia, Australia and East Timor and finally, the impact of Australia's recent withdrawal of maritime boundary disputes from the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.","PeriodicalId":42243,"journal":{"name":"Melbourne Journal of International Law","volume":"6 1","pages":"322"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2003-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90807445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The research question posed by this article is how the Internet has affected the debate on whether to provide non-governmental organisations ("NGOs") with access to trade and investment negotiations. The article begins by summarising the key arguments for and against increased NGO participation. Within this debate, international lawyers have largely ignored the question of whether the Internet pushes the debate in either direction. This article offers a contribution to this gap in the analysis. The methodology employed in examining this question is that of a case study of the failed negotiations among the member states of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development ("OECD") from 1995 to 1998 towards the Multilateral Agreement on Investment ("MAI"). The MAI was chosen because the OECD approach to negotiations was characterised by low levels of transparency and little scope for NGO participation. Further, the very active (and to some extent successful) campaign by NGOs against the MAI relied heavily on the Internet. The article finds that the MAI case study pushes the debate slightly in favour of greater NGO access to negotiations. Of itself, the Internet does not overcome the proper concerns of opponents based on questions of representativeness and accountability of NGOs. However, the article argues that these problems are counterbalanced to some degree by the expanded ability of electronically networked NGOs to assist in the sensitive process of conferring (or opposing) public approval and hence legitimacy for new agreements. The article concludes with some modest suggestions for greater transparency in negotiations as a response to these research findings.
{"title":"NGOs, the Internet and International Economic Policy Making: The Failure of the OECD Multilateral Agreement on Investment","authors":"J. Kurtz","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.364900","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.364900","url":null,"abstract":"The research question posed by this article is how the Internet has affected the debate on whether to provide non-governmental organisations (\"NGOs\") with access to trade and investment negotiations. The article begins by summarising the key arguments for and against increased NGO participation. Within this debate, international lawyers have largely ignored the question of whether the Internet pushes the debate in either direction. This article offers a contribution to this gap in the analysis. The methodology employed in examining this question is that of a case study of the failed negotiations among the member states of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (\"OECD\") from 1995 to 1998 towards the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (\"MAI\"). The MAI was chosen because the OECD approach to negotiations was characterised by low levels of transparency and little scope for NGO participation. Further, the very active (and to some extent successful) campaign by NGOs against the MAI relied heavily on the Internet. The article finds that the MAI case study pushes the debate slightly in favour of greater NGO access to negotiations. Of itself, the Internet does not overcome the proper concerns of opponents based on questions of representativeness and accountability of NGOs. However, the article argues that these problems are counterbalanced to some degree by the expanded ability of electronically networked NGOs to assist in the sensitive process of conferring (or opposing) public approval and hence legitimacy for new agreements. The article concludes with some modest suggestions for greater transparency in negotiations as a response to these research findings.","PeriodicalId":42243,"journal":{"name":"Melbourne Journal of International Law","volume":"48 1","pages":"213"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2003-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82031837","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
(New York: Routledge, 2002) pages i–ix, 1–278. Price US$95.00 (hardcover). ISBN 0415253527. Book Reviews This first book-length study of the international legal aspects of the dissolution of the Social Federal Republic of Yugoslavia offers more than its title promises. In the first chapter, Radan distinguishes what he calls the ‘classical theory’ of self-determination from the ‘romantic theory’: the former defines the subject of self-determination in terms of the territory which a group inhabits, while the latter defines it, roughly speaking, in terms of a group’s cultural and ethnic traits.1 For the latter, the group that should ‘determine itself’ is a national one, defined in terms of its ethnicity and culture. Having drawn this distinction, Radan proceeds, in chapter 2, to examine the use of the term ‘people’ in various international legal — mostly United Nations — documents regarding the selfdetermination of peoples. He concludes that in these documents the term ‘people’ is not restricted to the use prescribed by the classical theory of selfdetermination: the reference of the term ‘people’, in the frequently recurring phrase ‘the self-determination of peoples’, is not and cannot be restricted to ‘the total population of a political unit.’2 The term ‘people’, Radan argues, can — and in practice, does — encompass nations or national groups. While noting that neither the texts of various UN documents nor their travaux preparatoires can offer a conclusive interpretation of this term, he lists a large number of instances in which these documents refer to a number of ‘peoples’ inhabiting a single territory. He points out that in the great majority of these, the term can be, without any difficulty, understood to refer to nations. The rival interpretation, propounded by Antonio Cassesse,3 according to which ‘people’ refers to the entire population of a single state or colonial territory, Radan claims, is not only unsubstantiated but also inconsistent.4 The rival interpretation grants the right of secession to ‘a people’ but denies the status of ‘people’ to any group within a particular state. From this it follows that a people would have only the right to secede from itself. The contrary view, that ‘peoples’ include national groups within a single state, does not, however, imply that any national group within a single territorial unit or state would have the right to secession. Citing a variety of UN documents, Radan argues that a national group has the right to secede only when it is denied the right of internal self-determination in the state which it inhabits. The romantic theory of self-determination, at least its international law version, does not countenance an uncontrolled proliferation of states.
{"title":"The Break-up of Yugoslavia and International Law by Peter Radan","authors":"Aleksandar Pavković","doi":"10.5860/choice.40-3057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.40-3057","url":null,"abstract":"(New York: Routledge, 2002) pages i–ix, 1–278. Price US$95.00 (hardcover). ISBN 0415253527. Book Reviews This first book-length study of the international legal aspects of the dissolution of the Social Federal Republic of Yugoslavia offers more than its title promises. In the first chapter, Radan distinguishes what he calls the ‘classical theory’ of self-determination from the ‘romantic theory’: the former defines the subject of self-determination in terms of the territory which a group inhabits, while the latter defines it, roughly speaking, in terms of a group’s cultural and ethnic traits.1 For the latter, the group that should ‘determine itself’ is a national one, defined in terms of its ethnicity and culture. Having drawn this distinction, Radan proceeds, in chapter 2, to examine the use of the term ‘people’ in various international legal — mostly United Nations — documents regarding the selfdetermination of peoples. He concludes that in these documents the term ‘people’ is not restricted to the use prescribed by the classical theory of selfdetermination: the reference of the term ‘people’, in the frequently recurring phrase ‘the self-determination of peoples’, is not and cannot be restricted to ‘the total population of a political unit.’2 The term ‘people’, Radan argues, can — and in practice, does — encompass nations or national groups. While noting that neither the texts of various UN documents nor their travaux preparatoires can offer a conclusive interpretation of this term, he lists a large number of instances in which these documents refer to a number of ‘peoples’ inhabiting a single territory. He points out that in the great majority of these, the term can be, without any difficulty, understood to refer to nations. The rival interpretation, propounded by Antonio Cassesse,3 according to which ‘people’ refers to the entire population of a single state or colonial territory, Radan claims, is not only unsubstantiated but also inconsistent.4 The rival interpretation grants the right of secession to ‘a people’ but denies the status of ‘people’ to any group within a particular state. From this it follows that a people would have only the right to secede from itself. The contrary view, that ‘peoples’ include national groups within a single state, does not, however, imply that any national group within a single territorial unit or state would have the right to secession. Citing a variety of UN documents, Radan argues that a national group has the right to secede only when it is denied the right of internal self-determination in the state which it inhabits. The romantic theory of self-determination, at least its international law version, does not countenance an uncontrolled proliferation of states.","PeriodicalId":42243,"journal":{"name":"Melbourne Journal of International Law","volume":"3 1","pages":"203-207"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2002-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86463601","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores the question of what law students are encouraged to imagine as the role of international law in the global community. It argues that the ability to practice international law as economic and social justice is impeded if the teaching and learning of international law has been experienced as hierarchy. By hierarchy, the author means practices, doctrines and beliefs that take for granted or normalize the inequalities in power, wealth and status that are reflected, in many ways, in the normative hierarchies of international law. In particular, the author is concerned with the reconceived hierarchies and deepened inequalities that have accompanied post Cold War economic globalization, stemming at least in part from the insistent prioritization of private (economic) market values over the civic and redistributional (political) values of public international law. The discussion draws on a survey of the undergraduate courses offered by Australian law schools, in public and private international law, in 2000. The article focuses on three ways that the teaching and learning of international law can normalize hierarchy and thereby hamper independent, critical, social justice thinking. First, in the student-teacher relationship or, put another way, in the (lack of) engagement of students in the act of learning. Second, in the assumptions implicit, and perhaps explicit, in the content and structure of survey or foundational courses in international law. Third, in the specializations in international legal education that have developed and, in particular, the diminishing importance of public international law (and therefore 'fairness' obligations) as the private international law of the marketplace expands. The article suggests several strategies for making hierarchies transparent and contestable in legal education. The first is to use dialogic teaching methods, which enable students to become subjects of their own learning, to value diversity and pluralism, and to feel empowered to participate in the shaping of 'globalization'. The second is to redesign the curriculum of survey courses in international law, so that the classical pedagogical 'givens' are disrupted and new spaces for critical engagement with legal doctrine and practice are created, with a view to shifting the possibility of economic and social justice from aspiration to practice. Thirdly, the article suggests that the deepening division between public and private international law in legal education, evident in the proliferation of private international law electives, needs to be transformed. This transformation involves refusing the dualistic public/private separation - crossing the borders, as it were - and making room for hybrids of public and private international law by recognizing the complex interactions between them. In sum, the promotion of economic and social justice values relies on a rethinking of international legal pedagogy in its many dimensions, as a hybrid
{"title":"Handmaidens, Hierarchies and Crossing the Public-Private Divide in the Teaching of International Law","authors":"Dianne Otto","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.259953","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.259953","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the question of what law students are encouraged to imagine as the role of international law in the global community. It argues that the ability to practice international law as economic and social justice is impeded if the teaching and learning of international law has been experienced as hierarchy. By hierarchy, the author means practices, doctrines and beliefs that take for granted or normalize the inequalities in power, wealth and status that are reflected, in many ways, in the normative hierarchies of international law. In particular, the author is concerned with the reconceived hierarchies and deepened inequalities that have accompanied post Cold War economic globalization, stemming at least in part from the insistent prioritization of private (economic) market values over the civic and redistributional (political) values of public international law. The discussion draws on a survey of the undergraduate courses offered by Australian law schools, in public and private international law, in 2000. The article focuses on three ways that the teaching and learning of international law can normalize hierarchy and thereby hamper independent, critical, social justice thinking. First, in the student-teacher relationship or, put another way, in the (lack of) engagement of students in the act of learning. Second, in the assumptions implicit, and perhaps explicit, in the content and structure of survey or foundational courses in international law. Third, in the specializations in international legal education that have developed and, in particular, the diminishing importance of public international law (and therefore 'fairness' obligations) as the private international law of the marketplace expands. The article suggests several strategies for making hierarchies transparent and contestable in legal education. The first is to use dialogic teaching methods, which enable students to become subjects of their own learning, to value diversity and pluralism, and to feel empowered to participate in the shaping of 'globalization'. The second is to redesign the curriculum of survey courses in international law, so that the classical pedagogical 'givens' are disrupted and new spaces for critical engagement with legal doctrine and practice are created, with a view to shifting the possibility of economic and social justice from aspiration to practice. Thirdly, the article suggests that the deepening division between public and private international law in legal education, evident in the proliferation of private international law electives, needs to be transformed. This transformation involves refusing the dualistic public/private separation - crossing the borders, as it were - and making room for hybrids of public and private international law by recognizing the complex interactions between them. In sum, the promotion of economic and social justice values relies on a rethinking of international legal pedagogy in its many dimensions, as a hybrid","PeriodicalId":42243,"journal":{"name":"Melbourne Journal of International Law","volume":"164 1","pages":"35"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2001-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86310612","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}