Officially called the Treaty between Australia and the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS), [1] the treaty provides for the equal distribution of revenue derived from the disputed Greater Sunrise oil and gas field between Australia and East Timor. The field is located in the Timor Gap where Australia and East Timor have overlapping claims over the continental shelf or seabed. Prior to the treaty, East Timor would only have received about 18% of the revenue from the field.
CMATS also puts on hold the right by both countries to claim sovereign rights, discuss maritime boundaries or engage in any legal process in relation to maritime boundaries or territorial jurisdiction for 50 years which is the duration the treaty is in effect. CMATS is one of three treaties concerning the exploitation of gas and petroleum in the Timor Gap and is to be "read together" with the other two treaties, namely the Timor Sea Treaty of 2002 and the Sunrise International Unitization Agreement (Sunrise UIA) of 2003.
CMATS was signed in Sydney on January 12, 2006, by Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer and his East Timorese counterpart José Ramos-Horta. It came into force on February 23, 2007, with the exchange of notes in Dili, East Timor. The East Timor parliament had ratified the treaty while Alexander Downer invoked the national interest exemption to fast-track ratification at the Australian Parliament.
The Treaty became the subject of an action by East Timor before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague as a result of the Australia-East Timor spying scandal. Hearings commenced on 29 August 2016. [2]
In 2017, East Timor terminated CMATS, claiming it was invalid, due to Australian intelligence operations in 2004. [3] Following a resolution at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, CMATS was succeeded in 2018 by the Treaty Between Australia and the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste Establishing Their Maritime Boundaries in the Timor Sea. [4]
CMATS will not prejudice or affect Timor-Leste's or Australia's legal position or legal rights to the delimitation of their respective maritime boundaries. It will also not amount to a renunciation of any right or claims. [5]
The treaty replaces Article 22 of the Timor Sea Treaty, making its validity period the same as CMATS's, which is until 2057. The Timor Sea Treaty can however be renewed by the agreement of both parties. [6]
Both parties will not "assert, pursue or further by any means in relation to the other party" its claims to sovereign rights, jurisdiction and maritime boundaries for the period CMATS is in force. [7] Both countries will also not start any proceedings against the other before any court on issues related to maritime boundaries or delimitation in the Timor Sea. [8] Furthermore, no court proceedings involving the countries shall decide or comment on anything related to maritime boundaries or delimitation and any such comment or finding shall be of no effect and shall not be relied upon at any time. [9] Neither country shall also pursue in any international organization matters related to maritime boundaries or delimitation. [10]
This "postponement" on settling the question of sovereignty over the seabed is aimed at providing stability for the legal regime governing the exploitation of the Greater Sunrise field [11] and removing the "petroleum factor" once the two countries get down to settling their maritime boundaries. [12]
Under CMATS, both countries can continue with petroleum exploitation activities in areas in which had been authorised by its domestic legislation on 19 May 2002. [13] This is taken to allow Australia to continue with petroleum exploration and exploitation activities in the Laminaria-Coralina and other fields it claims to be located in its territorial waters as a result of the Agreement between the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia and the Government of the Republic of Indonesia Establishing Certain Seabed Boundaries in the Area of the Timor and Arafura Seas, Supplementary to the Agreement of 18 May 1971 (See Australia-Indonesia border page). East Timor had not granted any such activity as it had not attained independence at the said date. The state of domestic legislation on the said date was confirmed by two side letters, one from José Ramos-Horta confirming East Timor's position, and the other from Alexander Downer confirming Australia's position. This has been argued to be unfair to East Timor as it legitimises Australia's exploitation of petroleum in the disputed areas outside the Joint Petroleum Development Area established under the Timor Sea Treaty. [12]
The terms of the Joint Petroleum Development Area established under the Timor Sea Treaty will continue to be applied over the said area. [14]
Both parties are not obliged to negotiate permanent maritime boundaries for the period of the treaty. [15]
Both countries will share the upstream (valued as at oil well) revenue from the Greater Sunrise field on a 50:50 basis. [16] The upstream value of the petroleum shall be determined at "arm's length" basis. [17] The increase in East Timor's share on the proceeds from Greater Sunrise from 18.1% to 50% could be said [ citation needed ] to be the result of pressure based on East Timor's argument that the field was located closer to it than Australia and should therefore belong to it, a position claimed in submissions to the Australian Joint Standing Committee on Treaties in 2007, by which a 50% share is still not adequate for East Timor. [18] [19] According to this position, if a maritime boundary were established along the median line between the coasts of the two countries, the current prevailing practice, all of Greater Sunrise would be in Timor-Leste's territory. However, another source indicates that the part of Greater Sunrise that lies outside of East Timor's current jurisdiction, while indeed closer to East Timor than to Australia, is also closer to Indonesia than to East Timor [20] and thus would not be in East Timor's territory.
As for the method of payment, Australia is to pay East Timor half the total revenue earned by itself and East Timor less the amount of revenue earned by East Timor. On the event East Timor's revenue exceeds that of Australia, no payment will be made by East Timor but subsequent payments by Australia to East Timor shall be adjusted accordingly. [21]
Each party can request the appointment of an assessor to determine the amount of revenue earned by either country. [22]
All obligations related to exploring and exploiting for petroleum by Australia and East Timor for the duration of CMATS shall be governed by CMATS, Timor Sea Treaty, Sunrise International Unitization Agreement and any future agreement drawn up pursuant to the Timor Sea Treaty. CMATS however does not revoke the Timor Sea Treaty or the Sunrise IUA. [23]
East Timor shall have "sovereign rights" over the water column north of the southern border of the Joint Petroleum Development Area established under the Timor Sea Treaty while Australia gains "sovereign rights" over the water column south of the line. The coordinates of the line is determined in Annex II of the treaty. [24]
Point | Longitude (E) | Latitude (S) |
---|---|---|
Water column jurisdiction line in Annex II | ||
1 | 126° 31' 58.4" | 11° 20' 02.9" |
2 | 126° 47' 08.4" | 11° 19' 40.9" |
3 | 126° 57' 11.4" | 11° 17' 30.9" |
4 | 126° 58' 17.4" | 11° 17' 24.9" |
5 | 127° 31' 37.4" | 11° 14' 18.9" |
6 | 127° 47' 08.4" | 10° 55' 20.8" |
7 | 127° 48' 49.4" | 10° 53' 36.8" |
8 | 127° 59' 20.4" | 10° 43' 37.8" |
9 | 128° 12' 28.4" | 10° 29' 11.8" |
A Maritime Commission comprising one minister each appointed by the two countries. The commission should meet at least once a year. [25]
The parties agree not to re-determine the apportionment ratio of the Greater Sunrise field for the period the treaty is in force. [26]
CMATS shall remain in force for 50 years after its entry into force, which was on February 22, 2057, or five years after the exploitation of the Greater Sunrise field ceases, whichever earlier. Either East Timor or Australia can terminate most of CMATS if a development plan for the Greater Sunrise field is not approved within six years after its entry into force, or if production of petroleum from the field does not commence within 10 years after the date of entry into force of this Treaty. Should petroleum production take place in the Greater Sunrise field after the termination of CMATS, all the terms of this treaty shall come back into force and operate from the date of commencement of production. [27] No development plan had been approved by 23 February 2013, six years after CMATS came into force, and Timor-Leste was weighing whether to give notice of termination. [28]
CMATS will enter into force after an exchange of notes by both parties that their respective parliaments have ratified the treaty. The exchange of notes occurred on February 23, 2007.
East Timor's parliament ratified the treaty on February 20, 2007. CMATS was tabled in the Australian parliament on the first sitting day of 2007 on February 6, 2007, and on February 22, 2007, just before the exchange of notes with East Timor, Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer wrote to inform the parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Treaties of his decision to invoke the national interest exemption, to speed up ratification of the treaty by not first referring it to the Joint Committee. [29]
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea Treaty, is an international agreement that establishes a legal framework for all marine and maritime activities. As of June 2016, 167 countries and the European Union are parties.
The economy of East Timor is a low-income economy as ranked by the World Bank. It is placed 133rd on the Human Development Index, indicating a medium level of human development. 20% of the population is unemployed, and 52.9% live on less than $1.25 a day. About half of the population is illiterate. At 27%, East Timor's urbanisation rate is one of the lowest in the world.
The term territorial waters is sometimes used informally to refer to any area of water over which a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potentially the extended continental shelf. In a narrower sense, the term is used as a synonym for the territorial sea.
The Timor Sea is a relatively shallow sea bounded to the north by the island of Timor, to the east by the Arafura Sea, to the south by Australia.
Woodside Petroleum Ltd is an Australian petroleum exploration and production company. Woodside is the operator of oil and gas production in Australia and also Australia's largest independent dedicated oil and gas company. It is a public company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange and has its headquarters in Perth, Western Australia. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Woodside Petroleum was ranked as the 1328th-largest public company in the world.
The Timor Gap is an area of the Timor Sea between Australia and Timor Island. The island is divided between independent East Timor and West Timor province of Indonesia.
The Timor Gap Treaty was formally known as the Treaty between Australia and the Republic of Indonesia on the zone of cooperation in an area between the Indonesian province of East Timor and Northern Australia. It was a bilateral treaty between the governments of Australia and Indonesia, which provided for the joint exploitation of petroleum and hydrocarbon resources in a part of the Timor Sea Seabed. The treaty was signed on 11 December 1989 and came into force on 9 February 1991. The signatories to the treaty were then Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Gareth Evans and then Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas.
The Brunei–Malaysia border divides the territory of Brunei and Malaysia on the island of Borneo. It consists of a 266 km (165 mi) land border and substantial lengths of maritime borders stretching from the coastline of the two countries to the edge of the continental shelf in the South China Sea.
Malaysia and Vietnam are two Southeast Asian countries with maritime boundaries which meet in the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea. The two countries have overlapping claims over the continental shelf in the Gulf of Thailand. Both countries have, however, come to an agreement to jointly exploit the natural resources in the disputed area pending resolution of the dispute over sovereignty.
Formally known as the Timor Sea Treaty between the Government of East Timor and the Government of Australia was signed between Australia and East Timor in Dili, East Timor on 20 May 2002, the day East Timor attained its independence from United Nations rule, for joint petroleum exploration of the Timor Sea by the two countries. The signatories of the treaty were then Australian prime minister John Howard and his East Timorese counterpart at that time Mari Alkatiri.
East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island surrounded by Indonesian West Timor. Australia is the country's southern neighbour, separated by the Timor Sea. The country's size is 15,007 square kilometres (5,794 sq mi). Dili is its capital.
The Indonesia–Singapore border is a maritime boundary in the Straits of Singapore between Indonesia's Riau Islands which lie to the south of the border, and the islands of Singapore which lie to the north. The Straits of Singapore is one of the region's busiest waterways as it is the main channel for Singapore's ports.
The Australia–Indonesia border is a maritime boundary running west from the two countries' tripoint maritime boundary with Papua New Guinea in the western entrance to the Torres Straits, through the Arafura Sea and Timor Sea, and terminating in the Indian Ocean. The boundary is, however, broken by the Timor Gap, where Australian and East Timorese territorial waters meet and where the two countries have overlapping claims to the seabed.
This agreement is officially known as the Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste relating to the Unitisation of the Sunrise and Troubadour Fields.
The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) is a nonprofit US organization supporting human rights throughout Southeast Asia and Oceania. ETAN was founded in 1991 to support the right to self-determination of Timor-Leste. In 1999, that goal was significantly realized when the people of East Timor voted for independence. Since then ETAN has focused on building on its success in support of justice and self-determination in Timor-Leste and the surrounding region.
Bilateral relations exist between Australia and East Timor. Both countries are near neighbors with close political and trade ties. East Timor, the youngest and one of the poorest countries in Asia, lies about 610 kilometres northwest of the Australian city of Darwin and Australia has played a prominent role in the young republic's history.
Gary Francis Quinlan, is an Australian diplomat and public servant, who served as the Australian Ambassador to Indonesia from 2018 to 2021. He has previously served as High Commissioner to Singapore and as the Permanent Representative of Australia to the United Nations, including two terms as President of the United Nations Security Council.
The Australia–East Timor spying scandal began in 2004 when the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) clandestinely planted covert listening devices in a room adjacent to the East Timor (Timor-Leste) Prime Minister's Office at Dili, to obtain information in order to ensure Australia held the upper hand in negotiations with East Timor over the rich oil and gas fields in the Timor Gap. Even though the East Timor government was unaware of the espionage operation undertaken by Australia, negotiations were hostile. The first Prime Minister of East Timor, Mari Alkatiri, bluntly accused the Howard Government of plundering the oil and gas in the Timor Sea, stating:
"Timor-Leste loses $1 million a day due to Australia's unlawful exploitation of resources in the disputed area. Timor-Leste cannot be deprived of its rights or territory because of a crime."
Australia–Indonesia Security Agreements are any official treaties signed by both the Australian and Indonesian Governments that concern such issues as security cooperation, defense and military involving both nations. Since 1995, five official agreements have been signed: the 1995 Agreements, the 2006 Lombok Treaty, two Defence Cooperation Agreements relating to the Lombok Treaty, and the 2014 Joint Understanding on Security.
The borders of Indonesia include land and maritime borders with Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and Timor Leste, as well as shared maritime boundaries with Australia, India, Palau, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.