The Russia–United States maritime boundary was established by the June 1, 1990 USA/USSR Maritime Boundary Agreement 1990 USSR/USA Maritime Boundary Agreement
/ref> (since Russia declared itself to be the successor of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

). The

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and po ...

gave its advice and consent to ratification as early as on September 16, 1991, but it has yet to be approved by the Russian State Duma. This delimitation line is also known as the Baker-Shevardnadze line or Baker-Shevardnadze agreement, after the officials who signed the deal, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union

Eduard Shevardnadze Eduard Ambrosis dze Shevardnadze ( ka, ედუარდ ამბროსის ძე შევარდნაძე}, romanized: ; 25 January 1928 – 7 July 2014) was a Soviet and Georgian politician and diplomat who governed Georgia fo ...

and

U.S. Secretary of State The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...

James Baker James Addison Baker III (born April 28, 1930) is an American attorney, diplomat and statesman. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 10th White House Chief of Staff and 67th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President ...

. In general concept, the 1990 line is based on the 1867 United States – Russia Convention providing for the U.S. purchase of Alaska. From the point, 65° 30' N, 168° 58' 37" W the

maritime boundary A maritime boundary is a conceptual division of the Earth's water surface areas using physiographic or geopolitical criteria. As such, it usually bounds areas of exclusive national rights over mineral and biological resources,VLIZ Maritime Boun ...

extends north along the 168° 58' 37" W meridian through the Bering Strait and

Chukchi Sea Chukchi Sea ( rus, Чуко́тское мо́ре, r=Chukotskoye more, p=tɕʊˈkotskəjə ˈmorʲɪ), sometimes referred to as the Chuuk Sea, Chukotsk Sea or the Sea of Chukotsk, is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is bounded on the west ...

into the Arctic Ocean as far as permitted under international law. From the same point southwards, the

boundary Boundary or Boundaries may refer to: * Border, in political geography Entertainment * ''Boundaries'' (2016 film), a 2016 Canadian film * ''Boundaries'' (2018 film), a 2018 American-Canadian road trip film *Boundary (cricket), the edge of the pla ...

follows a line specified by

maritime Maritime may refer to: Geography * Maritime Alps, a mountain range in the southwestern part of the Alps * Maritime Region, a region in Togo * Maritime Southeast Asia * The Maritimes, the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Pri ...

geographic positions given in the Agreement.

Dispute

The need for the maritime boundary arose with the introduction of the 200-mile limit by the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States proposed using the 1867 Alaska line because it understood that to be the likely Soviet position. The 1990 delimitation was complicated since neither side could produce the maps used during the original Alaska purchase negotiations. Furthermore, the two sides agreed that the boundary was intended to be a straight line on a map, but they did not agree which

map projection In cartography, map projection is the term used to describe a broad set of transformations employed to represent the two-dimensional curved surface of a globe on a plane. In a map projection, coordinates, often expressed as latitude and l ...

was used:

Mercator __NOTOC__ Mercator (Latin for "merchant") may refer to: People * Marius Mercator (c. 390–451), a Catholic ecclesiastical writer * Arnold Mercator, a 16th-century cartographer * Gerardus Mercator, a 16th-century cartographer ** Mercator 1569 ...

or conformal. This resulted in about 15,000 square nautical miles of disputed area. The 1990 line split the difference between the two lines and introduced several "special areas", which were beyond the 200-mile zone, but in which the sides ceded their rights to the opponent. Many in Russia have criticized

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Com ...

and Edvard Shevardnadze for rushing the deal, ceding the Russian fishing rights and other maritime benefits, but so far both states have respected the line agreed in 1990. The United States continues efforts to enforce the boundary line against the encroaching Russian fishing vessels, in order to build up the evidence of "general state practice" that the 1990 agreement is indeed the marine border between the two countries."US-Russian Bering Sea Marine Border Dispute: Conflict over Strategic Assets, Fisheries and Energy Resources", by Vlad M. Kaczynski, Warsaw School of Economics,
"Maritime Border Conflicts", ''Russian Analytical Digest'', no.20, 1 May 2007
/ref>

Dispute

References

Further reading