Timor Gap
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The Timor Gap is an area of the
Timor Sea The Timor Sea ( id, Laut Timor, pt, Mar de Timor, tet, Tasi Mane or ) is a relatively shallow sea bounded to the north by the island of Timor, to the east by the Arafura Sea, and to the south by Australia. The sea contains a number of reefs, ...
between
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
and
Timor Island Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is divided between the sovereign states of East Timor on the eastern part and Indonesia on the western part. The Indonesian part, also ...
. The island is divided between independent
East Timor 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 exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-weste ...
and
West Timor West Timor ( id, Timor Barat) is an area covering the western part of the island of Timor, except for the district of Oecussi-Ambeno (an East Timorese exclave). Administratively, West Timor is part of East Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia. The ca ...
province of
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
. The Timor Gap is part of the Australia-East Timor border, Australia-Indonesia border, and
East Timor–Indonesia border The East Timor–Indonesia border is the international border between East Timor and Indonesia. The border consists of two non-contiguous sections totalling 253 km (157 m) in length, the larger section of which divides the island of Timor in ...
. It is 480 km (300 statute miles) wide.


History

Australia and Indonesia negotiated the border in 1972 and the Timor gap is part of the line they could not define because
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
, who governed colonial
East Timor 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 exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-weste ...
then, declined to participate in the negotiations until the conclusion of
UNCLOS 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. , 167 c ...
negotiations, due to the extremely complex nature of both international law and the complex geographical problems posed.


Timor Gap Treaty

Australia and Indonesia each posed different delimitation boundaries on their borders, while Portugal chose to abstain until a formal determination of an appropriate method for delimitation could be discerned. East Timor was later invaded and annexed by Indonesia in 1975. This annexation was not recognised by the UN, the people of Timor nor by the Portuguese, who continued to see it as an illegally occupied territory. In 1989 despite more than a decade of brutal Indonesian occupation, Australia and Indonesia agreed that Indonesia's ongoing occupation of Timor removed the need to include Portugal in any further negotiations and went on to bilaterally negotiate the
Timor Gap Treaty 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 betwee ...
. On 30 August 1999 a UN sponsored referendum saw
East Timor 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 exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-weste ...
chose independence. On the 19th of January 2000 The UN Temporary Administration agency for East Timor
UNTAET The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), ( pt, Administração Transitória das Nações Unidas em Timor Leste), was a United Nations mission in East Timor that aimed to solve the decades long East Timorese cri ...
signed
Memorandum of Understanding with Australia
to maintain the existing border agreement with Australia so as to allow continued development of the Timor Gap to ensure the financial future of the new country. The decision to maintain the historical agreement with Australia that had been negotiated by Indonesia caused great frustration to many Timorese. Numerous negotiations to determine the ownership of the tens of billions of dollars' worth of oil and gas located on the seabed of the
Timor Sea The Timor Sea ( id, Laut Timor, pt, Mar de Timor, tet, Tasi Mane or ) is a relatively shallow sea bounded to the north by the island of Timor, to the east by the Arafura Sea, and to the south by Australia. The sea contains a number of reefs, ...
, including completing the undefined boundary known as the Timor Gap, were held between Australia and East Timor from 2002 onwards. During this time Australia and international oil companies were accused of pressuring East Timor to accept a petroleum revenue-sharing formula while deferring permanent boundary resolution and foregoing legal avenues.


Timor Sea Treaty

On its independence day, East Timor signed the
Timor Sea Treaty 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 ...
with Australia. This treaty practically puts East Timor in the place of Indonesia in the Timor Gap Treaty, except that the ratio of revenue distribution in the Joint Petroleum Development Area, known as the Zone of Cooperation under the 1989 treaty, was changed to 90:10 in favour of East Timor. The 2002 treaty provided for the future "unitisation" - treating a gas or oil field which straddles one or several borders as one unit - of the Greater Sunrise gas field, of which only 20% was located within the JPDA while the rest was deemed to be in Australian territory. In East Timor's view, this distribution could be disputed as it did not recognise the borders, drawn between Australia and Indonesia, which placed the bulk of Greater Sunrise in Australian territory. On 20 February 2007, East Timor's parliament agreed to ratify the agreement with Australia over the management of oil and gas resources in the Greater Sunrise field in the Timor Sea. The Australian and East Timor governments formally exchanged notes in Dili on 23 February 2007 to bring into force the two treaties that provided the legal and fiscal framework for the development of the Greater Sunrise gas field in the Timor Sea. The notes covered the
Sunrise International Unitization Agreement 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.Full text of agreement available f ...
(Sunrise IUA) and the
Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea Officially called the Treaty between Australia and the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS), the treaty provides for the equal distribution of revenue derived from the disputed Greater Sunri ...
(CMATS). Foreign Minister
Alexander Downer Alexander John Gosse Downer (born 9 September 1951) is an Australian former politician and diplomat who was leader of the Liberal Party from 1994 to 1995, Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1996 to 2007, and High Commissioner to the United King ...
, using a power invoked only six times in its history, invoked a "national interest" exemption clause to fast-track ratification of the CMATS treaty through the Parliament without scrutiny by its
Joint Standing Committee on Treaties The Parliament of Australia (officially the Federal Parliament, also called the Commonwealth Parliament) is the legislative branch of the government of Australia. It consists of three elements: the monarch (represented by the governor-g ...
.Robert J. King, “The Timor Gap, 1972-2017”, March 2017. Submission No.27 to the inquiry by the Australian Parliament Joint Standing Committee on Treaties into Certain Maritime Arrangements - Timor-Leste. p.67

/ref>


2018 Maritime Boundaries Treaty

On March 7, 2018, Australia and East Timor announced that a treaty had been signed regarding the border and the exploitation of the Greater Sunrise gas field. The agreed boundary would follow the median line between the two countries. The 2018 Maritime Boundaries Treaty formalized the agreement reached by Australia and Timor Leste on their maritime boundaries. The two countries had failed to reach agreement on a preferred option for development of the Sunrise/Troubadour field, and annexes to the Treaty set out procedures for achieving this. Article 3 of the 2018 treaty on maritime boundaries between Australia and Timor-Leste provides for adjustment of the continental shelf boundary between the two countries following settlement of that boundary between Indonesia and Timor-Leste. If those countries agree to an endpoint to their continental shelf boundary west of point A18 on the 1972 Seabed Treaty Boundary, the continental shelf boundary between Australia and Timor-Leste shall be adjusted so that it proceeds in a geodesic line from point TA-2 in the 2018 Treaty (at 11° 24' 00.61" South and 126° 18' 22.48" East), to point A18 (at 18 10° 37' South and 125° 41' East). The Treaty provides that this shall not come into force before the commercial depletion of the Laminaria and Corallina Fields. In the event that a continental shelf boundary agreed between Timor-Leste and Indonesia meets the 1972 Seabed Treaty boundary at a point to the west of point A18 on the 1972 Seabed Treaty Boundary, the continental shelf boundary shall be adjusted so that it proceeds in a geodesic line from point TA-11 in the 2018 Treaty (at 9° 42' 21.49" South and 128° 28' 35.97" East), to point A18. But this shall not come into force before the commercial depletion of the Greater Sunrise Fields.


References


External links


Minding the Timor Gap
from
Dollars & Sense ''Dollars & Sense'' is a magazine focusing on economics from a progressive perspective, published by Dollars & Sense, Inc, which also publishes textbooks in the same genre. ''Dollars & Sense'' describes itself as publishing "economic news and ana ...

Robert J. King, Submission to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee on the provisions of the Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty, January 2019


from La'o Hamutuk Bulletin, April 2006

published by the East Timorese organisation
La'o Hamutuk La'o Hamutuk (Tetum for "walking together"), or the Timor-Leste Institute for Development Monitoring and Analysis, is an East Timorese non-governmental organisation (NGO). It is based on Avenida Dom Ricardo da Silva, , in the national capital, ...
.
Timor Sea Justice Campaign
* TIMOR GAP Website
www.timorgap.com
{{coord, 9, S, 127, E, type:waterbody_source:dewiki, display=title Timor Sea Australia–East Timor border Australia–Indonesia border East Timor–Indonesia border Oil field disputes Territorial disputes of Australia Territorial disputes of East Timor Territorial disputes of Indonesia