Caspian Sea to receive special legal status, says Russian Deputy Foreign Minister
According to the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, the signing of which is expected at the Summit of the Heads of the Caspian littoral states in the Kazakh city of Aktau on August 12, the Caspian will be declared neither a sea nor a lake. Commenting on the upcoming summit, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said it.
According to him, as per Convention, “the Caspian Sea will have special legal status because of a number of specific geographic, hydrological and other features.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister stressed, “the Caspian Sea is an enclosed inland body of water that has no direct links to the global ocean, so it cannot be viewed as a sea.” At the same time, given its size, water composition and specifically its seabed structure, it cannot be considered a lake either.
According to the diplomat, in this regard, the Caspian Sea is neither covered by the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea nor the principles regulating cross-border lakes.
Karasin noted that only its bed can be divided into sectors, while other principles are used to determine sovereignty over superjacent waters.
He reminded that the Caspian states have long found ways of settling the disputable issues on delimitation of the Caspian seabed in bilateral or trilateral formats.
“I believe that the agreements signed by Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, as well as those between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, could serve as a model for the delimitation of the sea’s southern section,” he said.
According to Karasin, the Convention clearly stipulates that this delimitation only refers to subsoil natural resources, and creates an obligation for the parties to hold relevant talks based on international law. After delimitation, coastal states obtain full jurisdiction over the subsoil resources in their part of the seabed.
The Caspian is the most unique and the world’s largest enclosed body of water, rich in hydrocarbon deposits. Since the USSR collapse and the emergence of new subjects of international law – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, its status have remained unclear.
Experts believe that about 90 percent of the world’s sturgeon stocks are concentrated in the Caspian Sea.
However, the main wealth of the Caspian Sea is, of course, its shelf. The projected hydrocarbon reserve at sea is estimated at 18 billion tons of equivalent fuel. Proved oil and gas reserves are 4 billion tons. More reserves are only in the Persian Gulf.
One of the main aspects of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea is the creation of an international regulatory and legal framework for the careful development of the sea resources.
