Page 363 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

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SUBMARINE BOUNDARIES 299
k; 3
prove to be more equitably applicable to the situation. Furthermore,
guidance in this matter may be sought from the treatment of the ■
problem by some writers. Thus, according to one writer, M. W.
Mouton, where an oil pool might be divided by a line drawn in
accordance with the principle of equidistance, ‘account must be taken
of the essential unity of a deposit’. In this writer’s view, ‘the strict
application of the general rule (of equidistance) may involve the
danger of an oil-pool being divided up among different countries’.1
However, the writer agrees that this exceptional situation, which un­ !
doubtedly gives rise to the question of ‘special circumstances', ‘can
only be solved by agreement ... for which it would be difficult to
lay down a general rule’.2 The Memorandum on the Regime of the
High Seas, prepared by the Secretariat of the United Nations in
July 1950, foresaw the problem in the following statement:
. . . the same deposits will frequently be found on both sides of a proposed
boundary line. The exploitation of a mineral deposit at any given spot will,
at least as regards oil-bearing strata, undoubtedly react on other parts of the
deposits.
i
In this case, the statement continued.
it is not possible ... to fix an exact limit within which submarine drilling
shall be permissible and beyond which it shall not. To allow drilling just
outside the limit (by the other State) is quite unthinkable if such drilling
is liable to react on the exploitation of substances within that limit.3
The solution of the above problem, it is suggested, lies in the adoption
of ‘the concept of a protective perimeter’ which is regarded as ‘an
indispensable adjunct to the idea of a demarcation of the areas allotted ;
to the States interested in the same shelf’.4
On the other hand, Padwa, who has discussed this problem, does I
not seem to agree with Mouton on the idea of ‘the essential unity of a
deposit’. The problem itself, says Padwa, is not within the meaning of
special circumstances. ‘The possibility that one party’, he continues, ■
‘might deplete such a divided reserve before the other commenced
exploitation is not sufficient reason to justify a departure from the !
principle of equidistance. In such a case the parties must arrive at an
accommodation between themselves.’5 Similarly, another writer,
Auguste, who admits the shortcomings of international law on pro­ :
viding a solution to the problem of directional drilling at the very i
■
1 Mouton, The Hague Recueil, op. cit., pp. 420-1. According to the writer, ‘the
danger... exists also on land and in granting concessions the principle is followed
that two concessionaires should not tap the same pool or in a descriptive parable, :
never two straws in one glass’. 2 Ibid.
3 A/CN.4/32, 14 July 1950, as supplied by Mouton, The Hague Recueil, op. cit.,
pp. 420-1.
4 Ibid. 5 Padwa, op. cit., p. 645.