An Analysis On The Compulsory Conciliation Case Between Timor-Leste And Australia

The conciliation case between East Timor and Australia is the first case successfully resolved according to the Annex V of United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea(hereinafter referred to as "the Convention").Through the conciliation procedure,the two countries came to a final agreement of sea boundary.It is well known that the delimitation of a sea boundary relates to sovereignty,which makes it fundamental and difficult to solve.In the negotiation process of the Convention,many countries were unwilling to have any third-party institution to touch it,and the negotiation resulted in a compromise,the compulsory conciliation institution according to the Annex V of the Convention,from that perspective,the success of this conciliation case means a lot.Firstly,it proved that the compulsory conciliation institution,as a compromise,functions well in the most sensible disputes;secondly,this case will serve as case law for the future disputes.The main point of this paper is on the Decision on Australia's Objections to Competence by the conciliation commission.In that decision,the commission analyzed Article 281 and 298 of the Convention and decided on some other problems.The first part of this paper will introduce the basic facts of this case.Timor-Leste started to negotiate a permanent sea boundary with Australia when it got its independence.Though those two countries have concluded several treaties already,the final delimitation of the sea boundary has not been done yet.In recent years,Timor-Leste starts to rely on third-party institutions to facilitate the process,initiating an arbitration process and this compulsory conciliation process.Also in the first part,the author concluded the four issues in dispute in this case,which are the main focus of the analysis in this paper: the first is the essence of CMATS Treaty and its relation to the Convention,the second is whether the compulsory conciliation process should be excluded by Article 281 of the Convention,the third is whether the compulsory conciliation process should be excluded by Article298 of the Convention,and the fourth is the 12-month deadlines of the conciliation process.In the second part of this paper,the author will analyze the essence of CMATS and its relation to the Convention.In this part,the author will support the analysis of the conciliation committee on this issue,i.e.CMATS itself won't affect the competence of the committee.The key of this issue is about how to deal with conflicts of international laws.It is proposed by some theories that CMATS is a special law to the Convention.In this part,the author willrefute this point of view.The third part of this paper will mainly focus on whether the conciliation process should be excluded according to the condition set by Article 291 of the Convention.The opinion of the committee is that the condition is not met,which is the standpoint of the author.Furthermore,this part will refute some argument which extended the meaning of Article 281.The fourth part of this paper will turn to Article 298 of the Convention.The competence of the committee derives from this article,and this article also stipulates the condition in which compulsory conciliation process should be excluded.The committee thought that the condition of exclusion was not met in the current case,however,the author opines that the analysis of the committee is not rigorous enough.After going through the argument for the committee's opinion,the author holds that the condition set by Article 298 is already met.The fifth part will analyze the issue of the 12-month deadline.On this issue,the committee agreed with Australia that the time for considering competence should be excluded from this period.However,the author will propose his disagreement based on some facts from other cases.In the last part,combining with the facts and outcome of this case,this paper will put forward an opinion on the compulsory conciliation process: although this procedure won't produce any binding decision on the disputed issue,and seems a unpractical one,this paper holds that according to this case and the analysis of the author,the compulsory conciliation procedure is more piratical than we think and worth more attention from people.