Natasha Niebieskikwiat
08/28/2021 13:30
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 08/28/2021 1:30 PM
In a strong diplomatic gesture that is amplified with the passing of the hours, Sebastián Piñera
strongly marked the field for Argentina
in a
territorial conflict
that takes place in the southern seas, and that for Chile has high national resonance.
By decree published this week in the official gazette of Santiago, the trans-Andean president established rules that set the continental shelf of his country
from 200 nautical miles from the Diego Ramírez islands, south of Cape Horn
.
In a technical and complex terminology, the presidential decree modified a previous one, adding to the definition of
"Exclusive Economic Zone"
, the expression "
outer limit of 200 nautical miles of the Continental Shelf
", among other issues.
Piñera's decree, which among others also bears the signature of his Foreign Affairs and Defense ministers, makes the neighboring continental shelf
overlap in parts to the one that Argentina extended
by a request it made to the United Nations in 2009, and that the government of Alberto Fernández
made law and even reflected on the official maps
of the Republic in 2020.
The Argentine Foreign Ministry was aware this Saturday of the new Chilean decree but did not comment on it.
They claim to be in conversations with the neighbors
about these and other issues.
They also ironically pointed out that
in Chile there are presidential elections this year
.
Alberto Fernández visited Piñera last January.
How the border is delimited
The continental shelf of a country comprises the bed and subsoil of the underwater areas that extend beyond its territorial sea and along the natural extension of its territory.
There you have sovereignty and you can exploit natural resources
.
Examples of
serious conflicts between countries over the continental shelf
are not lacking in the world, such as the one involving Greece and Turkey.
In the Argentine-Chilean case, it shows that
several pending issues remain
despite the fact that between Raúl Alfonsín and Carlos Menem they put an end to most of the border conflicts.
The southernmost area of Chilean-Argentine Patagonia is the
gateway to Antarctica,
where both Chile, Argentina and the United Kingdom have territorial claims that also overlap.
For the Argentines it is also access to the Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands,
in conflict of sovereignty with the British.
The map of the Argentine continental shelf turned into law in 2020
From Punta Arenas, Jorge Guzmán, a doctor in Polar Studies from the University of Cambridge, told
Clarín
that Piñera's decree
"updates" the outer limits of his country's underwater sovereignty in accordance with international law.
"The government of Cristina Kirchner
unnecessarily forced Chile to make its platform explicit
,
" he
said.
It refers to the fact that the government of the current vice president presented in 2009 to the CONVEMAR (Convention of the Law of the Sea) all the papers
to extend its continental shelf,
including that of those areas that
Chile does not recognize now
.
"It was a
unilateral and reckless act
, aimed at impacting the bilateral relationship. According to article 76 of the UNCLOS, adjacent to point F (the one that neighbors object to in the Cape Horn area) there are Chilean rights."
Chileans are now unaware of the fact that due to an
error by their own Foreign Ministry
in 2009, they did not complain to Argentina when it presented its request for territorial extension under the sea and neither did they present their own limits to the CONVEMAR.
The British did.
Now, the Chilean Foreign Ministry
says that that 2009 presentation was not necessary
because it is a fact that countries have full rights within 200 miles of their continental shelf.
What Argentina did when requesting the extension in 2009 was to
take it up to 350 nautical miles in the cases in which it considered that it could do so
- and the CONVEMAR allowed it to do
so
- by international regulations.
Guzmán, who is a career diplomat and member of the AthenasLab study center, explained that the 1984 Argentine-Chilean Peace and Friendship Treaty restricts the projection of the Chilean EEZ (exclusive economic zone), not the continental shelf.
"Cristina forced us to take this step that
will have an impact on the bilateral relationship
. Unnecessary and only for her supporters club," he said.
Throughout 2020, Chile made its rejection of the new official map of Argentina felt several times.
He rejected it for
diplomatic notes.
And as
Clarín
has anticipated
, at the beginning of last August it also rejected parts of the New Argentine National Defense Directive. The Chilean Foreign Ministry document sent to Ambassador Rafael Bielsa refutes the fact that Argentina attributes joint controls over Magellanic and Antarctic areas that
Santiago considers as their own
, and that prompted the Piñera decree. Here they recognized an "error" in the writing, but the truth is that
no solution has yet been found.
But, in addition, they warned in Santiago that in the maritime areas of the Malvinas Islands, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, free transit prevails.
It so happens that the Argentine government once again controlled and threatened with sanctions on international oil tankers and fishing vessels in the disputed waters,
which Chile would be refuting.
It is also worth wondering if Santiago de Chile's objections, in addition to protecting himself in what he believes to be his own, do not have a second reading: they
weaken the Argentine strategy for Malvinas.
And it is clear that there is high sensitivity in the neighboring country due to the fact that it was Nestor Kirchner, the governor of Santa Cruz, and Cristina Fernández, a legislator, who opposed the resolution of the conflict over Campos de Hielo.
NE