tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post4127613204726090805..comments2023-10-22T18:25:39.688+08:00Comments on The View from Taiwan: Tkacik on Cohen, AJISS on OkinawaMichael Turtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17974403961870976346noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-7228486704954828402010-11-25T10:01:19.628+08:002010-11-25T10:01:19.628+08:00Jon i put up your whole response today, way above ...Jon i put up your whole response today, way above this one.Michael Turtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17974403961870976346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-17401085358609131042010-11-24T22:07:35.759+08:002010-11-24T22:07:35.759+08:00The Diaoyu/Senkaku Islets Should Be Ignored in th...The Diaoyu/Senkaku Islets Should Be Ignored in the Maritime Delimitation of the East China Sea<br />By Jerome A. Cohen and Jon M. Van Dyke (Part 4)<br />Other recent delimitation decisions have similarly given small islands no effect. In the 1999Eritrea-Yemen Arbitration, the tribunal gave no effect whatsoever to the uninhabited Yemeni island of Jabal al-Tayr and to the uninhabited Yemeni islands in the al-Zubayr group (which are on the “wrong side” of the equidistance line between the two countries in the Red Sea), stating simply that their “barren and inhospitable nature and their position well out to sea…mean that they should not be taken into consideration in computing the boundary line.” Similarly, in the 2001 Qatar-Bahrain Case, the ICJ ignored completely the small, uninhabited, and barren Bahraini islet of Qit’at Jaradah, situated midway between the two countries, explaining that it would be inappropriate to allow such an insignificant maritime feature to have a disproportionate effect on a maritime delimitation line. The Court also ignored completely the “sizeable maritime feature” of Fasht al Jarim, of which “at most a minute part is above water at high tide.”<br />Other decisions where small islets have been ignored include the 1985 Libya-Malta decision (ignoring Malta’s Filfla Island); the 1978 France-UK Arbitration (ignoring the UK islands of Jersey and Guernsey, despite their substantial population in drawing the boundary in the English Channel); and the 2002 maritime delimitation between the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland (ignoring Nova Scotia’s Sable Island).<br />Shanghai scholar Ji Guoxing has written that “China holds that the Diaoyudao Islands are small, uninhabited, and cannot sustain economic life of their own, and that they are not entitled to have a continental shelf.” That conclusion is supported by the text of Article 121(3), by the underlying purpose of this provision, and by repeated rulings of the ICJ and other international tribunals.<br />[Further details on the cases discussed can be found, e.g., in Jon M. Van Dyke, The Romania v. Ukraine Decision and Its Effect on East Asian Maritime Delimitations, 15 Ocean & Coastal Law Journal 261-83 (2010).]Jon M. Van Dykenoreply@blogger.com