UK to annex south Atlantic

Do you support this?

  • Yes of course , because..

    Votes: 7 50.0%
  • No way this is not good because..

    Votes: 7 50.0%

  • Total voters
    14

XaNDeR

New Member
Britain is preparing territorial claims on tens of thousands of square miles of the Atlantic Ocean floor around the Falklands, Ascension Island and Rockall in the hope of annexing potentially lucrative gas, mineral and oil fields, the Guardian has learned.

The UK claims, to be lodged at the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, exploit a novel legal approach that is transforming the international politics of underwater prospecting.

Britain is accelerating its process of submitting applications to the UN - which is fraught with diplomatic sensitivities, not least with Argentina - before an international deadline for registering interests.


Relying on detailed geological and geophysical surveys by scientists and hydrographers, any state can delineate a new "continental shelf outer limit" that can extend up to 350 miles from its shoreline. Data has been collected for most of Britain's submissions and Chris Carleton, head of the law of the sea division at the UK Hydrographic Office and an international expert on the process, said preliminary talks on Rockall are being held in Reykjavik, Iceland, next week.

Mr Carleton believes the Falklands claim has the most potential for acrimonious political fallout. Britain and Argentina fought over the islands 25 years ago, and the value of the oil under the sea in the region is understood to be immense: seismic tests suggest there could be up to 60m barrels under the ocean floor.

Britain has been granted licences for exploratory drilling around the islands within the normal 200-mile exploration limit and any new claim to UNCLCS would extend territorial rights further into the Atlantic.

"It would be beyond the 200-mile limit but less than 350 miles," said Mr Carleton, who is involved in preparing the submission. "It effectively joins up the area around South Georgia to the Falklands. It's a claim but how it's handled has not been decided yet. The Argentinians will say it's not ours to claim. It's all a bit tricky."

Martin Pratt, director of research at Durham University's international boundaries research unit, added: "The Russians may be claiming the Arctic but the UK is claiming a large chunk of the Atlantic. Some states might ask why a big power is entitled to huge stretches of the ocean's resources thousands of miles away from its land, but that's the way the law is."

Because of the sensitivities - earlier this year Buenos Aires scrapped a 1995 agreement with the UK to share any oil found in the adjacent waters - the first formal application from the UK is likely to centre on Ascension.

The volcanic island, 1,000 miles from the African mainland, sits just to one side of the mid-Atlantic ridge. No gas or oil is likely to be found below the surrounding waters but there could be significant mineral deposits on the ocean floor.

Talks have already begun between Ireland, Iceland and Denmark for the division of rights far out into the north Atlantic. It includes the island of Rockall and the sub-sea Hatton ridge. The competing claims are nowhere near final resolution although Ireland and the UK have agreed a common boundary.

Other countries that have submitted claims to the ocean floors around remote overseas dependencies have run into fierce resentment from neighbouring nations. France, which this summer registered its claim to thousands of square miles around New Caledonia, in the Pacific, has received protests from Vanuatu warning that the claim has "serious implications and ramifications on Vanuatu's legal and traditional sovereignty". Russia was criticised this summer for making claims beneath the Arctic Ocean.

The UN body has been progressing slowly through its casework. The process of extending the normal 200-mile limit requires volumes of technical evidence of submarine soundings. According to the convention on the law of the sea, applicant states may register their rights by "establishing the foot of the continental slope, by meeting the requirements stated for the thickness of sedimentary rocks".

Once demarcated, the ocean floor may then be claimed up to 60 nautical miles from the bottom of the continental slope. When territorial rights have been obtained, states have the right to extract any minerals, natural gas or oil discovered in the annexed seabed.

There is a deadline of May 2009 for claims from the UK and other countries to be submitted, although states that ratified the treaty later have more time. "The amount of technical data required is massive," said Mr Pratt. "Australia recently submitted 80 volumes."

In the past, Greenpeace has described the process as a "land grab".


http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,,2174615,00.html







This sounds very interesting indeed ..
I wan't to know who supports this and why , and who is against it and also the reasons .
 

kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Technically, it's not a "claim" that the UK will make.

They will issue a submission to the CLCS at UNO, which will then consider it at their next session, and will afterwards make recommendations. In the session, other nations can (and will) log their protests, which will also have to be considered.

In the case of France alluded to in the article for example, Vanuatu, Surinam and New Zealand logged protest submissions. The original submission by France was in May, the whole thing was considered in August to September, and referred to a subcommittee which will not work on it before the next session (March to April).

Before any official claim can be made (with official support), up to a decade may pass.
 

chunga1

New Member
seems like a response to the russian claims in the arctic. i would think these claims will start a new land grab and possibly lead to war. as much as i loath the un this is exactly the type of problem it was created for. lets hope they can reach some compromise
 

kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
seems like a response to the russian claims in the arctic.
Nah, there's been an entire series of such claims:

2001 - Russia (Arctic)
2004 - Brazil (South Atlantic)
2004 - Australia (Indian Ocean; some area south of Tasmania)
2005 - Ireland (North-East Atlantic)
2006 - New Zealand (Antarctic Sea, South Pacific)
2006 - Joint: UK, France, Ireland, Spain (Bay of Biscaya; Irish Sea)
2006 - Norway (North-East Atlantic)
2007 - France (South Pacific; Caribbean)

It's been sort of a trend to establish these. Most of these have raised some protests from other regional nations, btw.
 

aimans

New Member
nothin is going to happen, UK's military is already stretched in iraq and afghanistan, maybe in 50+yrs time
 

riksavage

Banned Member
What's the current UK involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan got to do with!

Argentina going to invade as soon as the Brit's push for tthe claim? I seriously doubt it!!!
 

Gripenator

Banned Member
What's the current UK involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan got to do with!

Argentina going to invade as soon as the Brit's push for tthe claim? I seriously doubt it!!!

Not that they have the military capability to "invade" as they did in 1982-and the UK response will be swift and of far better quality unlike their response to Iran's kidnapping crimes while the Argentineans are still operating much of the equipment used in 1982-1 Type 45 DD can effectively provide area defense of a UK CBG from the entire AAF:)
 

Izzy1

Banned Member
What's the current UK involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan got to do with!

Argentina going to invade as soon as the Brit's push for tthe claim? I seriously doubt it!!!
Agreed.

In my opinion, Buenos Aires would have to start investing in some new kit and reform its military before it could ever seriously contemplate a re-run of 1982.

Despite the current committments and years of down-scalling, the UK's ability to rapidly reinforce the Falkalnds is probably better now than it was in 1982. The current defences on the island and infrastructure available to support reinforcements is certainly well beyond anything available then.

I also believe that the ability of British forces to hit Argentine mainland targets through stand-off systems to be far superior to the options we had back in 1982. The mere possibility of a single Royal Navy SSGN with Tomahawk operating in the area would in my opinion force a moment of pause for any such Argentine venture.
 
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