Page 84 - AEI Insights 2018 Vol 4 Issue 1

AEI Insights, Vol 4, Issue 1, 2018

The UNCLOS established the CLCS (Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf) as
the standing (scientific) panel of the instrument to deal with the claims beyond the 200nM
parameter. The CLCS is mandated to examine the maritime claims per individual state requests.
Recommended deliberations of the CLCS are becoming final and binding if no contradictory
claim is lodged (art.76). In case of disputes, the final settlement is subjected either to the Hague-
based ICJ or to the Intl. Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

Bosnian case

The bilateral international agreement on the state border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and
the Republic of Croatia, known as the Agreement on the Border between the two states, or
more familiarly, as the Tuđman-Izetbegović Agreement, signed in Sarajevo on 30 July 1999
between the then President of the Republic of Croatia, Franjo Tuđman, and the Chairman of
the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alija Izetbegović, represents in its 23 Articles,
conditionally, "a valid act since it has been applied until a new one is made" (V.Đ. Degan,
2013). This Agreement could also be perceived to contain a transitional or provisional solution,
since it has never been ratified by any parliament and does not serve its ultimate purpose - the
permanent establishment and determination of the land and sea border between the two
neighbors. In this regard, it can even be argued that the Republic of Croatia de facto abandoned
the execution of this Agreement when its official authorities decided to embark on the building
of a permanent construction at sea. This all supports the fact that the issue of delimitation and
demarcation at sea, especially in the area of the Bay of Neum and the Mali Ston Bay, is still
permanently undefined and unsettled and thus requires, in our opinion, a serious step towards
opening an official dialogue with Zagreb with the involvement of EU institutions, since the
Republic of Croatia is a member of the European Union.

The second difficulty should be addressed together with the first. It would be especially
important to define the sea boundary, regarding the tip of the Klek Peninsula and the
uninhabited islets, Veliki and Mali Školj or, more precisely, the rocks in the Mali Ston Bay,
which are part of a unique geomorphologic unit, together with the Klek Peninsula. If we draw
the line of equidistance for purposes of delimitation of two states whose shores in one bay lie
or are opposite to one another (the Peninsula of Klek and Pelješac), which is in accordance
with the international law of the sea, as well as Article 4 (3) of the bilateral Agreement which,
inter alia, prescribes that border at the sea stretches "the median line of the sea area between
the land of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Croatia", it could be claimed that the
disputed area would belong to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Closely connected to this, the question
of Bosnia-Herzegovina's access to the High Seas or international waters of the Adriatic Sea
and other world seas should be addressed, where no country in the world has territorial
sovereignty, nor does it exercise any sovereign rights. High sea areas are world seas and oceans
which are outside any state territory and provide a regime of free navigation and overflight, as
well as other freedoms inherent to the High Seas. On this part of the planet, according to general
customary international law, all countries in the world, under certain circumstances, exercise
their jurisdiction over vessels flying the flag of their country.

For these reasons, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea from 1982 (UNCLOS) (ratified
both by the Republic of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina) states in Art. 7 (6) of the
Convention that, in declaring its straight baselines, from which the width of the territorial sea
is measured, the coastal State may not cut off the territorial sea of another coastal state from
the High Seas or the exclusive economic zone. As things stand currently, in order to get from

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