Publications

Exploration for ocean resources such as oil and gas requires certainty of jurisdiction over the maritime area where the exploration is to be conducted. The sovereignty or sovereign rights over the area in question must be legally clear and undisputed. No oil company will risk the investment of the huge amount of money required to undertake offshore exploration activities in an area where jurisdiction over the seabed is in doubt - legal and therefore fiscal certainty is viewed as essential. It is the case that ocean energy resources often do lie in maritime areas where two or more states exercise overlapping claims. The case of the Ambalat offshore area between Indonesia and Malaysia and the dispute over energy exploration in the Timor Sea between East Timor and Australia are two good examples of such situations.In such situations, each state has a strong interest in arguing that the resources in question should be, as much as possible, exploited for its own advantage. Maritime boundary delimitation can play an important role in minimizing such conflict. Alternatively, a maritime joint development zone can be negotiated as an alternative to the delimitation of a definitive boundary line. The objective of this paper is to highlight the strategic value of maritime boundaries and maritime joint development zones to ocean resource exploration.In order to achieve this objective, two cases have been analyzed: the Ambalat offshore area in the Celebes Sea and the Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA) in the Timor Sea. Analysis shows that the failure to established permanent maritime boundaries, to some extent, is harmful to ocean resources exploration. However, it has also been identified that establishing a joint cooperation zone can be an alternative solution while permanent maritime boundary has not yet settled.Keywords: ocean resource, maritime boundaries, delimitation, UNCLOS