The hearing on the case related to the Bay of Bengal maritime boundary
dispute between Bangladesh and India will begin at the Permanent Court
of Arbitration (PCA) in the Netherlands on Monday.
A Bangladesh delegation is scheduled to leave Dhaka for Hague today to
join the eight-day hearing at the five-member tribunal. Foreign
minister AH Mahmud Ali, former foreign minister and agent of the case
Dipu Moni and foreign secretary M Shahidul Haque are likely to be in the
delegation.
The Netherlands-based PCA is expected to deliver its judgment by the first half of the next year, foreign ministry sources said.
The Arbitral Tribunal members are Professor RĂ¼diger Wolfrum (president),
Judge Thomas A Mensah, Dr Pemmaraju Sreenivasa Rao, Prof Ivan Shearer,
Judge Jean-Pierre Cot, according to PCA documents.
Bangladesh is represented by Dipu Moni (agent), deputy agent of
Bangladesh and secretary of the foreign ministry’s maritime affairs unit
rear admiral (retd) M Khurshed Alam.
On the other hand, India is represented by agent and joint secretary and
the legal adviser of the Ministry of External Affairs Dr Neeru Chadha
and co-agent joint secretary (BSM), Ministry of External Affairs, Harsh
Vardhan Shringla and deputy agent director (BSM), Ministry of External
Affairs, Puneet Agrawal.
On October 8, 2009, Bangladesh instituted arbitral proceedings
concerning the delimitation of the maritime boundary between Bangladesh
and India pursuant to article
287 and Annex VII, Article 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Law
of the Sea (UNCLOS). The Permanent Court of Arbitration acts as
registry in this arbitration.
Bangladesh won a landmark verdict against Myanmar on March 14, 2012 at
the ITLOS and through the verdict, Bangladesh sustained its claim to the
200-nautical-mile exclusive economic and territorial rights in the Bay
of Bengal. (source)