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Argentina becomes a geographic giant

2020-09-29T16:53:46.103Z


The new official map expands the continental shelf and spans two continentsThe Argentine icebreaker Almirante Irízar, during the 2018/2019 Antarctic campaign. Argentine Navy Argentina has grown under the Atlantic. In 2016, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea accepted Argentine claims on its continental shelf. Since last August, by law passed in Congress, that platform and a large portion of Antarctic territory (not internationally recognized) are include


The Argentine icebreaker Almirante Irízar, during the 2018/2019 Antarctic campaign. Argentine Navy

Argentina has grown under the Atlantic.

In 2016, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea accepted Argentine claims on its continental shelf.

Since last August, by law passed in Congress, that platform and a large portion of Antarctic territory (not internationally recognized) are included in a new map of the country that will soon be distributed to all schools.

The territorial expansion involves 1.7 million square kilometers (to get an idea, the extension of Spain is barely more than half a million square kilometers) and gives Argentina sovereign rights over the mineral wealth in that marine soil and subsoil.

The history of oceanic expansion began under the presidency of Carlos Menem, in 1995, with the entry into force of the UN Convention.

At that time, Frida Armas Pfirter was a doctor in Public International Law who worked for the Supreme Court.

In 1997, she was entrusted with coordinating the National Commission for the Outer Limit of the Continental Shelf and she no longer stopped taking up the matter.

More than a dozen scientific expeditions under harsh meteorological conditions (after the 2001 crisis, ships were stopped paying, and they withheld the information) made it possible to locate the slope of the continental crust and examine the sediments on it.

They were 20 years of work that took shape, between 2009 and 2016, in the 800 kilos of paper contributed as documentation to the International Convention.

The new limits received the approval of the Convention (an independent technical commission supervised by the UN), which was celebrated as a great national success by the administration of Mauricio Macri.

But, for some reason, the previous president did not translate the enlarged map into law.

That was done on August 25 of this year by President Alberto Fernández.

“15,000 new maps have already been printed, we need 50,000 so that each of the 42,000 Argentine schools have their copy.

New nautical charts are also drawn up ”, explains Dr. Armas.

International law establishes the absolute sovereignty of countries up to 12 nautical miles (about 22 kilometers) beyond the coast.

Then, up to 200 nautical miles (about 370 kilometers), rights are recognized as an Exclusive Economic Zone.

The extension of the submarine platforms allows that in some areas of Argentina, as in the Patagonian Gulf of San Jorge, the economic zone is extended up to 369 miles, 683 kilometers offshore.

In current terms, Argentina becomes a bicontinental country, with a presence in America and Antarctica.

Traditionally, the claimed Antarctic territory was drawn in a small square next to the coast, something that General Perón already complained about in the 1940s.

Now it is reflected in its real location, with what Tierra del Fuego, once the southernmost point of the map, almost a port at the end of the world, is now located in the almost exact center of the country.

Seven nations claim Antarctic territory: Argentina, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, France (for their expedition to Tierra Adelia in 1840) and Norway (for their expedition to Pedro I Island in 1821).

Those claims are recognized in the Antarctic Treaty as being prior to 1961, but they remain frozen and unresolved.

In the new Argentine map, of course, the problem of the British possessions in the South Atlantic is embedded: Malvinas, Georgia and Sandwich.

The waters controlled by the United Kingdom account for "almost half of the Argentine economic zone", according to Daniel Filmus, government secretary for Malvinas, Antarctica and the South Atlantic, and they occupy a good part of "the most important fishing reserve in the world".

For Filmus, the acceptance by the UN of the enlarged map "reaffirms Argentine sovereignty" over the Falklands and other British Isles in the area.

The Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs, Felipe Solá, pointed out that the recently approved territorial law "will increase legal certainty for the granting of concessions for the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons, minerals and sedentary species."

"We are the owners of the water column, the bed and the subsoil," he said.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-09-29

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