Page 88 - AEI Insights 2018 Vol 4 Issue 1

AEI Insights, Vol 4, Issue 1, 2018

But if dialogue is opened, perhaps after formal disagreement through a diplomatic note to the
Republic of Croatia, the latter will surely have the advantage, or at least a better negotiating
position, due to its European Union membership. This fact may well be crucial (since the
European Union also recognizes the interest in land consolidation of its territory, so that its
members can better monitor and control their state territory, with the goal of Croatia's entry
into the Schengen area) to the success of the negotiations as a diplomatic mean of settling one
international dispute, which surely here does exist, at least with respect to the territorial title.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that an international dispute does not need to be specifically
proclaimed, the essence is in the existence of a disagreement with respect to essential facts, or
in their apparently different interpretations.

If there is an international dispute between two coastal states that share the eastern coast of the
Adriatic Sea - that is not debatable - it is now best to choose the most appropriate and effective
means of settling the dispute with, if possible, mutual interest as its aim. In this respect, it would
be best to choose the most appropriate means for peaceful settlement of disputes from a large
palette of diplomatic and legal means that are equally available to each state. Based on the
foregoing, a dispute can be brought before the ICJ in The Hague, the International Tribunal for
the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in Hamburg, or it can be "easily" settled through ad hoc arbitration,
i.e. special arbitration tribunals. But for the decision, which is the only outcome of these legal
proceedings, it is necessary to wait for years, since such international legal processes can be
very long-lasting and, above all, extremely expensive. In any case, Bosnia and Herzegovina
will surely need to find a modus operandi in solving the above-mentioned issues with its
western neighbor. This could be found in the Joint Team of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the
Republic of Croatia for Negotiations on the Implementation of the UN Convention on the Law
of the Sea and the Delimitation at Sea or, perhaps, on a general level, in a body that will be
composed on a parity basis, such as the Inter-State Diplomatic Commission for the
Determination of the Border Line, which should, inter alia, settle the border dispute over the
Danube River between the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Croatia, still, so far, with
little success. All this graphically demonstrates the complexity of the international law of the
sea, particularly in the area of delimitation.

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