Australia brushes aside East Timorese sovereignty in oil and gas deal

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Under the agreement, Dili has reportedly agreed to put off the final settlement of the maritime boundary between the two nations for a period of 50 to 60 years. In exchange, East Timor will receive an undisclosed percentage, instead of a fixed dollar amount, of revenue from the yet-to-be developed Greater Sunrise oil and gas field... Its main consequence, however, is that Canberra has succeeded in having Dili drop its claim of sovereignty over key resource-rich areas of the Timor Sea for two generations; by which time the oil and gas fields in the area will be commercially exhausted. If current international law—the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)—were applied, the international boundary would be along a line equidistant from the land territories and the only fully operating field, the Laminaria-Corallina, would fall entirely under East Timorese control. Since the field began operating in November 1999, the Australian government has pocketed nearly $US2 billion in royalties while East Timor has received nothing. In 2003 alone, Australia received $US172 million in royalties from Laminaria-Corallina—twice as much as the entire budget of the East Timorese government.