Bangladesh on Thursday put forward the amended submission on the limits if its outer continental shelf in Bay of Begal to the United Nations.

Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations Ambassador Rabab Fatima delivered the amended submission to the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea (DOALOS) on behalf of the government due to travel restrictions for the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the United Nations said it in a press release on Friday.

Earlier, Bangladesh lodged a Submission to the Commission on February 25, 2011 in accordance with the Article 76, paragraph 8 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982, concerning the limits of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from the baseline from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.

However, subsequently Bangladesh’s maritime boundary was determined up to the limits of the Continental Shelf by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in the Dispute concerning delimitation of the maritime boundary between Bangladesh and Myanmar in the Bay of Bengal in 2012 and Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Matter of the Bay of Bengal Maritime Boundary Arbitration between Bangladesh and India in 2014.

Therefore, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has prepared the revised submission with their relentless efforts and finally submitted the amended submission for further proceedings by the CLCS which supersedes in its entirety the Submission deposited on 25 February 2011.

Following this, it is expected that a sub-commission will be formed; a presentation on this amended submission would be made before the Commission by the Bangladesh UNCLOS Technical Team, and then Bangladesh will receive a ‘Recommendation’ from the Commission.

After the maritime boundary issues were resolved with neighbours (Myanmar and India), Bangladesh requires the ‘Recommendation’ to fulfill the obligation of Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), 1982.

BDST: 1542 HRS, OCT 23, 2020
AP