SHINING SOME LIGHT ON THE IRAN-IRAQ MARITIME BOUNDARY

This is an image from The International Boundary Research Unit at Durham University which has been researching the Iran-Iraq maritime boundary. It's latest research regarding the question as to whether the British servicmen and woman were arrested in Iraqi or Iranian territorial waters is available at http://www.dur.ac.uk/ibru/resources/iran-iraq/

Here is what it says;

Notes on the Iran-Iraq maritime boundary
Since the detention of fifteen British military personnel by Iranian forces in the northern Gulf on 23 March 2007 there has been much debate about whether the incident occurred in Iranian or Iraqi waters. The International Boundaries Research Unit has prepared the following notes and an illustrative map on boundary issues in the area, which we hope will help to inform the ongoing discussion.



Is there an agreed boundary?
No maritime boundary has ever been agreed between Iran and Iraq. However, the boundary in the Shatt al Arab river agreed in 1975 (1) extends to the mouth of the river at the astronomical lowest low-water line, which is located nearly 10 nautical miles seaward of the high-water line that most maps show as the coastline. The southern terminal point of the agreed boundary lies just under 1.7 nautical miles northeast of the position at which the British Ministry of Defence claimed that incident on 23 March took place.

Defining the territorial sea
The low-water line is also the normal baseline from which the territorial sea is measured. Under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) a coastal state may claim a territorial sea up to 12 nautical miles in breadth. The territorial sea is part of the sovereign territory of the state, although ships of all states have the right of innocent passage through the territorial seas of other states. Warships which do not comply with the laws and regulations of the coastal state concerning passage through the territorial sea can be ordered to leave the territorial sea immediately.

Territorial sea boundaries
All states with adjacent coastlines need to define territorial sea boundaries with their neighbours. In the absence of a boundary agreement, UNCLOS requires states not to extend their territorial sea beyond the median line with neighbouring states, unless historic title or other special circumstances exist which justify a departure from the median line. The median line is the line every point of which is equidistant from the nearest points on the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial seas of the neighbouring states measured. If no maritime boundary exists and neither state has published details of the limits of its territorial sea (and neither Iran nor Iraq has done so) it is not unreasonable for third states to treat the median line as a de facto boundary.

Graphical depictions of the boundary situation
The line shown on the Ministry of Defence maps published on 28 March is described as the "Iraq/Iran Territorial Water Boundary". This is somewhat misleading. The line shown actually comprises (i) the section of the Iran-Iraq land boundary that follows the Shatt al Arab between the high- and low-water lines, and (ii) the median line between the two low-water lines running through the territorial sea.

The map prepared by IBRU shows the agreed boundary in the Shatt al Arab and the median line constructed between the low-water lines depicted on United Kingdom Hydrographic Office charts (nos. 2884 and 3842). The low-water lines in the vicinity of the mouth of the Shatt al Arab depicted on chart 3842 were derived from satellite imagery acquired in 2002. Assuming that the coordinates supplied by the Ministry of Defence are correct, and assuming that the low-water line has not moved significantly since 2002 (see below) the incident appears to have taken place on what is technically land territory rather than in the territorial sea. More pertinently, however, the point is clearly south of both the 1975 boundary and the median line between the two low-water lines (at least as they are depicted on British charts).

Complicating factors
Setting aside the question of whether the point is located on 'land' or in the territorial sea, does this mean that the point is definitely in Iraqi rather than Iranian territory? There are a number of reasons for exercising caution before making a categorical assertion to that effect.

The unstable coastline
The coastline in the northern Gulf is far from stable, and it is quite possible that there is a legitimate dispute over the alignment of the median line. Iranian charts may show a different low-water line from British charts, and Iran is perfectly entitled to define its baseline using Iranian charts. While it seems unlikely that the mouth of the Shatt al Arab would have shifted sufficiently for the point identified by the Ministry of Defence to be located on the Iranian side of the median line, if the incident took place further east (as the Iranian government appears to be claiming) then it is quite possible that Iran has legitimate grounds for its claim that the British boat was operating on the wrong side of what is at least a de facto boundary. It is also arguable that the unstable coastline represents a special circumstance that justifies delimiting a territorial sea boundary that departes from the median line.

Iran is not a party to the law of the sea conventions
Iran is not a party to UNCLOS, nor to its predecessor, the 1958 Geneva Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone. Iran might therefore argue that it is not bound by the (identical) provisions of those conventions regarding baselines and territorial sea delimitation. However, if these these provisions have become customary international law (and that is widely considered to be the case) they would be binding on Iran.

Iran's straight baselines
Iran measures its territorial sea from a system of straight baselines. Even though the legitimacy of these baselines is questionable (straight baselines should only be drawn around coastlines which are deeply-indented or fringed with islands, and Iran's coastline is neither of these things) they certainly complicate the jurisdictional picture in the boundary area.

Issues relating to the 1975 boundary agreeement
Article 2 of the 1975 protocol defining the land boundary made provision for the boundary to continue to follow the thalweg of the Shatt al Arab in the event of a "shift of the bed of the or its mouth caused by natural phenomena". In Article 6, it was agreed that a joint survey of the Shatt al Arab would be made at least every 10 years. No such survey appears to have taken place, so there may be a question as to whether the boundary still follows the line defined in 1975 or whether it actually follows the course of the thalweg of the river today.

Some commentators have cast doubt on whether the 1975 boundary agreement is still valid. It is true that Iraq unilaterally abrogated the agreement in September 1980 and declared its sovereignty over the whole of the Shatt al Arab. However, in the aftermath of the eight-year war between the two countries that followed, Saddam Hussein confirmed Iraq's recognition of the 1975 agreement in a letter to President Rafsanjani in August 1990.

One further point to note about the 1975 protocol: Article 7 provided for freedom of navigation for Iranian and Iraqi vessels "regardless of the delimitation of each country's territorial sea".



Notes
(1) The boundary was defined in the Treaty Relating to the State Boundary and Good Neighbourliness between Iran and Iraq signed in Baghdad in June 1975. The boundary agreement is often referred to as the "Algiers Agreement" because the two governments agreed on the principles for defining the boundary at a meeting in Algiers in March 1975.

The Iran-Iraq boundary
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So from this I would say that the evidence that the British servicemen and woman were arrested in Iraqi waters in inconclusive. If so, Blair is risking the lives of these military personnel (who we know he detests by his action in Iraq and his attitude towards them should they be injured or die) to start a war we know he and his masters desperately want.

But this does not excuse Iran from their actions either. They should release the British men and women immediately and strongly argue for a commission to establish indisputable legally-binding maritime boundaries.