How long will Bangladesh ignore its maritime area and continental shelf?
Through awareness-raising and advocacy programs, think tanks such as BCOLP could have pressured the government to focus more on exploiting its own resources instead of importing the same spending valuable foreign currencies
During the early 2010s, Bangladesh frequently appeared in the global media thanks to the Bay of Bengal Maritime Boundary Delimitation Cases. Bangladesh litigated against Myanmar at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) and India at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA).
I was doing my second master's at South Asian University, New Delhi, around the same time. Since my major was international law and I chose to write my dissertation on the law of the sea, I closely followed the news and press releases to keep myself updated on those cases. It was only then I realised that despite the global attention Bangladesh was able to attract because of its maritime boundary litigations, there was a lack of engagement with the topic among academe and the civil society in Bangladesh.
The reason behind this gap was that Bangladesh did not have many ocean law scholars with expertise in maritime boundary affairs.
About a decade later, in the early 2020s, the Bangladesh Parliament enacted two laws regulating marine fisheries and maritime zones. The 2020 Marine Fisheries Act replaced the former Marine Fisheries Ordinance of 1983, and the 2021 Territorial Waters and Maritime Zones (Amendment) Act revised the provisions of the Territorial Waters and Maritime Zones Act of 1974.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
The former laws had become obsolete, and stakeholders urged successive governments to upgrade them. The incumbent finally responded to these calls, took necessary initiatives, and passed the amended laws.
However, immediately after the enactment of these amended laws, stakeholders expressed their concerns about the merits of the new laws. In brief, they alleged that provisions of the new laws could not meet their expectations and those of others affected.
They also argued that stakeholders and subject matter experts were not duly consulted before these provisions were drafted. For example, researchers who work on natural resources governance have long been demanding the incorporation of the precautionary principle in fisheries legislation. However, the precautionary principle, a globally recognised concept of international environmental law, has not been incorporated in the recently enacted Marine Fisheries Act of 2020.
These two anecdotes illustrated that there needed to be a civil society organisation or a think tank which could aid the government by providing the necessary expertise and research support in relation to ocean affairs and marine resources management.
Such an institution can play a key role in developing marine policies for the benefit of the people and the nation. Sometimes these entities might take a position that contradicts the government on some issues, and the incumbent may not like it. However, their deliberations on these issues in the public sphere feed into the people's right to information and help them form opinions and make informed decisions.
With this in mind, I took the initiative to establish the Bangladesh Centre for Ocean Law and Policy (BCOLP), a non-profit, non-partisan forum for education, research and training on ocean law and policy, focusing on Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal. Launched on 8 June 2022 to mark World Ocean Day, BCOLP aims to generate public debates and discussions on Bangladesh's position in global and regional ocean governance regimes.
BCOLP also seeks to raise public awareness about maritime security, marine environmental protection, marine resource management, the blue economy and other relevant aspects of ocean governance.
The idea of establishing such a forum first came to mind when I received a postdoctoral fellowship at Yokohama City University, Japan, in January 2021. The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) funded this two-year fellowship, which allowed me to research my preferred topic at my own pace. My project was about regional fisheries governance, and I examined the application of the principles of international environmental laws (e.g., the precautionary principle and the ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management) in the fisheries regimes of the Bay of Bengal rim countries.
While doing my research, I again discovered that academic and civil society in Bangladesh had neglected this critical area for so long. I also found no dedicated forum to undertake independent research on these matters and offer thought leadership. BCOLP seeks to fill this gap by serving as an alternative platform for research and advocacy on ocean law and policy with a national and regional focus. BCOLP also envisions a rule-based international order where natural resources are sustainably managed and equitably distributed.
After the peaceful settlement of the maritime boundary disputes with India and Myanmar, Bangladesh has got a well-demarcated maritime area, which can now be utilised for the nation's benefit. Bangladesh is also claiming an extended continental shelf area beyond 200 nm in the Bay of Bengal, and an application to this effect has been submitted to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), which was established under the UN Law of the Sea Convention.
If this clain is sustained, Bangladesh will have another vast area of continental shelf that comes with sedentary species and seabed minerals. Two of the most critical functions of BCOLP will be to inform people and the government about the resources available in our maritime areas, including in the coastal belt, offshore waters, and the continental shelf, and ensure that the government adopts appropriate policies for the sustainable utilisation of these resources.
Using a recent example, let me explain how BCOLP can contribute to the benefit of the people and the government. One of the criticisms the incumbent faced during the ongoing energy crisis was that it did not make meaningful efforts to exploit its oil and gas resources in the Bay of Bengal. Instead, it relied on imports to meet most of the energy demands.
While India and Myanmar discovered a vast oil and gas reserve in their maritime areas adjacent to ours, we could not effectively explore and exploit the twenty-six blocks of oil and gas we have in the Bay. Through awareness-raising and advocacy programs, think tanks such as BCOLP could have pressured the government to focus more on exploiting its own resources instead of importing the same spending valuable foreign currencies.
On the other hand, it is equally important to reveal that a resource is not available, so nobody can take political mileage by giving people false hope. For example, in March 2020, a study conducted by the World Bank's Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) estimated that there is no offshore wind technical potential in Bangladesh's exclusive economic zone.
Since the report's accuracy was not guaranteed either by the World Bank or ESMAP, the government should undertake a scientific survey employing an expert panel to discover the true potential of offshore wind energy in the Bay. Obtaining authentic and updated information about the resources is the first step in adopting appropriate policies to manage them.
I am aware that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Maritime University (BSMRMU), a publicly funded university in Bangladesh, has been imparting higher education and undertaking research on maritime matters since 2013. In addition, the Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs (BILIA), Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), and Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies (BIPSS) are some of the leading think tanks of the country that work on legal, security, strategic and international affairs.
With a distinct concentration on ocean governance and the law of the sea, BCOLP serves to complement the existing institutions in this area. Ultimately, BCOLP wants to help shape the legal landscape of ocean affairs in Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal by developing and sharing expertise and meaningfully engaging with relevant stakeholders.
Dr Abdullah Al Arif is a JSPS Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Yokohama City University, Japan, and the Founder and Director of BCOLP.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.
