ASEAN Beat | Diplomacy | Southeast Asia

Can ‘Compulsory Conciliation’ Resolve the Cambodia-Thailand Maritime Border Dispute?

Bangkok’s recent withdrawal from a 2001 MoU governing maritime border talks has prompted Phnom Penh to internationalize the dispute.

On Tuesday, Cambodia’s government announced that it had launched a compulsory conciliation process under international maritime law aimed at resolving a ‌long-running maritime boundary dispute with Thailand.

The move came after Thailand’s government unilaterally cancelled a 2001 agreement with Cambodia over joint offshore energy exploration and the demarcation of maritime boundaries in the Gulf of Thailand.

In an address broadcast on state television, Prime Minister Hun Manet announced that his government had commenced the process of compulsory conciliation under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and had informed both the U.N. Secretary General and the Thai government about the decision.

“We have taken this step to protect Cambodia’s sovereignty and maritime rights in accordance with international law,” ​ Hun Manet said, as per the government-aligned media outlet FreshNews.

“This is not unilateral action,” he added. “It is an effort to resolve the dispute peacefully, through international law, and in good faith.”

On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn also briefed foreign ambassadors about Cambodia’s decision, stating that Phnom Penh regretted Bangkok’s cancellation of the 2001 memorandum of understanding on the maritime border. He said that after “carefully considering” its available options, Cambodia “concluded that it had no alternative but to initiate compulsory conciliation proceedings under UNCLOS.”

According to Annex V of the Convention, compulsory conciliation is a process in which a panel of independent exports – known as conciliators – examine a dispute and help states parties reach an amicable settlement. However, its findings are not legally binding on either party.

The mechanism has been rarely used. The only other instance was Timor-Leste’s decision in 2016 to refer its maritime dispute with Australia to compulsory conciliation. In that instance, Australia accepted conciliation and the five conciliators were able to offer a compromise, which was accepted by both parties.

Cambodia said that it was appointing Foreign Minister Prak ⁠Sokhonn as its agent for the proceedings, Reuters reported, citing a government statement. It has also conscripted French academic Jean-Marc Thouvenin and Danish diplomat Peter Taksøe-Jensen, who chaired the Australia-Timor-Leste conciliation commission, to serve as conciliators.

“Thailand now has 21 days to appoint two ​of its own conciliators. The conciliators will then select a chair to finalize a conciliation ​commission, overseen by ⁠the U.N. secretary-general,” the statement added.

The maritime dispute ‌relates to a 26,000-square-kilometer area in the Gulf of Thailand, known as the Overlapping Claims Area (OCA). The OCA is estimated to hold abundant reserves of oil and natural gas, the exploitation of which has become more pressing due to the current global oil supply crisis.

Offshore tensions have increased in parallel........

© The Diplomat