Thodoros Kariotis: Lots of talk about an EEZ, but no sight of an EEZ

We’ve been looking for the EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone), but where it is no one knows. For 38 years I have been trying to convince my compatriots of the value of this concept, which is so vital to our national interests. So I started an uphill journey, writing and publishing books and articles in Greek and English, obviously to dead ears. The ghost of the EEZ continues to haunt Turkey.

It is well known that Ankara considers the concept of the EEZ to be its biggest enemy in the Eastern Mediterranean. I will never forget the maudlin climate of the Turkish delegation during the vote on the new Convention of the Seas and Oceans at the UN headquarters in New York on April 30, 1982. The result of the vote was 130 votes in favor, four against and 17 abstentions. .

The four countries that voted against were the United States, Turkey, Israel and Venezuela. I can now confess something I have kept secret for over 38 years. The day after the vote, before I returned to Washington, I had a discussion with my great teachers, the ministry’s legal adviser Doris Chalkiopoulos, and Maritime Law expert Manolis Gounaris.

Landing in Greek reality

I spoke to them enthusiastically about the EEZ, but they very quickly landed me in the Greek reality, when they told me: “Theodore, don’t get excited, the EEZ is the same thing as the continental shelf”. So my return to the American capital was not pleasant at all. A few days later I realized that with their legal education they were not able to understand the economic dimension of the EEZ, which was the dominant part of the new institution of international law.

The same thing happened later, when Christos Rozakis and other professors of international law treated me with contempt, arguing that I did not know the subject (because I am an economist and not an international relations specialist, ignoring that this was my advantage, as the EEZ is mainly an economic concept) . Later, I understood the main reason for their position.

They had written doctoral dissertations, articles and books on the continental shelf and could not divorce themselves from the subject of their scientific opus. So 38 years ago, I started to deal with the EEZ, but many in Athens considered me quaint. Thus, they did not pay any attention to the first map of the EEZ that was ever published in Greece, which showed the maritime borders of our country, for the first time.

The historic UNCLOS conference

Today, I feel special satisfaction and pride that almost all Greeks deal with these three words, regardless of whether few understand their meaning. The Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (or UNCLOS III from its initials in English) was truly a world-historical event. No other world conference has lasted so many years with the participation of so many states.

The work of UNCLOS III lasted from December 1973 to December 1982, when the new United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was submitted for signature and ratification by the states. The 1982 International Convention is divided into 17 parts (Parts I-XVII), including 320 articles and nine annexes (Annexes I-IX). The Final Act of the Conference also includes four Decisions (Decisions I – IV) and six Annexes.

Later, on December 10, 1982, UNCLOS was signed by 120 states (including Greece, Cyprus and the EU) in Montego-Bay, Jamaica. Finally, the Convention provided that it would enter into force 12 months after its ratification by 60 states (Article 308). UNCLOS actually entered into force on 16 November 1994, and at the end of 2019 it had been ratified by 167 states and the EU.

The gains that can be made from the creation of an EEZ can be significant if, for example, a very small habitable island is strategically located more than 400 nautical miles from any neighboring country. Thus, for example, it will be able to secure an EEZ for fishing and exploitation of the seabed, which exceeds 125,000 square miles, ie an area larger than France!

There is no doubt that UNCLOS is a historic milestone, as it symbolizes a radical change in the structure of international economic relations by introducing into international economic law a series of new concepts which, considered as a whole, provide the basis for a new international order. Personally, I feel justified that today, since the most popular issue on the lips of Greeks after Covid-19, is the EEZ!

EEZ we hear, but EEZ we do not see!

From the time of Andreas Papandreou until today, no prime minister of Greece has included the EEZ as explicitly as the current prime minister, when he declared: “Our only difference with Turkey is the delimitation of the EEZ and the continental shelf.” As Angelos Syrigos explained to “Kyriakatiki Kathimerini”: “Turkey comes with a lot of issues. These include the claim on Greek islands, the Muslim minority in Thrace, the demilitarization of the eastern Aegean islands and primarily the joint exploitation of the wealth-producing sources of Greece and Cyprus with Turkey.

In the Turkish perception, Greece and Cyprus are identical. Turkey is guided by the ideology of the “Blue Homeland”, the main tool of which is the illegal Turkish-Libyan memorandum. The degree of its invocation by Ankara will determine whether dialogue (and any negotiations, if any) can have a future. There is an extremely small probability of this.. ”

As Costas Venizelos writes: “It is clear that diplomatic mobility offers time for management. Those who believe that Turkey will not return with research vessels and warships are naive. They live in an illusion. “Ankara seeks dialogue, with an open agenda, with all issues on the table, with all its illegal and irrational demands in the negotiation.”

We have started talking about the EEZ, but in fact we do not see an EEZ! We recently made our first EEZ delimitation with Italy, but it left a bitter taste, because we allowed the Italians to fish near our islands (while the main reason the EEZ was created was to protect the fisheries of the coastal states)! The first demarcation of the EEZ should have been done with Cyprus and not with Italy.

The EEZ with Cyprus should be Greece’s top priority

The next one, now, must be with Cyprus and not with Egypt, because the Egyptians know that we are in a hurry and demand things that we must not accept. They have a big problem with Ethiopia and a problem with Turkey in Libya and they do not want to open another front with Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean. They do not accept the influence of Kastellorizo, nor the equidistant middle line.

Thus, they demand from the Greeks to make a partial delimitation of the EEZ, so that it seems that they have a sea border with Turkey, but without Greece having one with Cyprus! UNCLOS does not allow partial demarcation, but it seems that Athens wants to use this demarcation to place a wedge into the illegal Turkish-Libyan memorandum. Unfortunately, we can not decry a violation of the Law of the Sea by constructing one of our own!

And suddenly we discovered, while writing these lines, in an article by Nefeli Lygerou that: “For its part, Athens insists that the only bilateral difference is the delimitation of the continental shelf. It stands on the continental shelf and does not use the broader term EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone), because Turkey has not signed the Convention on the Law of the Sea and does not recognize the EEZ term introduced in this Convention. This is despite the fact that this Convention is a customary law and as such binds the countries that have not signed it, and therefore Turkey “.

We should remind the Mitsotakis government that the United States has not signed or ratified UNCLOS, but has declared an EEZ and demarcated it with its neighboring states.