Seabed Boundaries in the Northern Bay of Bengal: The Unclear Role of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in Paving the Way to Resource Exploitation

Even before Bangladesh's submission on the outer limits of its continental shelf beyond 200 miles from its baseline reaches the head of the queue awaiting the attention of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, the maritime boundary delimitations with Myanmar (2012) and India (2014) have produced a unique situation, in which Bangladesh's seabed boundaries have been fully delimited with both neighbours, creating a single continuous outer limit landward of the one submitted to the Commission. This may mean that there is no need to await the Commission's reaction to Bangladesh's submission, as there is nothing to stop Bangladesh simply beginning to exploit areas on its side of the two boundaries. This paper examines whether the position is really that simple, and whether any other state might have grounds for objecting if Bangladesh does so, together with deficits of co-operation that may confound early moves to exploitation.