In the 70s of the XX century it became necessary to demarcate the USSR and US sea economic areas in the Bering Strait, Chukchi Sea, Arctic and Pacific Oceans. The point in question was to establish an exclusive economic zone beyond the territorial waters in the area adjacent to these waters. Negotiations on the agreement started in 1977 and resulted in signing the Maritime Boundary Agreement in 1990.
By concluding the Agreement the USSR and USA were going to solve two key problems: delimitation of a disputable economic zone and disputable continental shelf area outside the national economic zones between the USSR and USA in compliance with the International Law of the Sea.
In 1977, the Soviet side accepted as a temporary measure the American proposal on delimitation of fishing zones between the two states on the basis of the line determined by the Russian-American Convention of 1867 in those areas where a distance between the coastal lines of the USSR and USA is less than 400 miles. This line with modifications in the central part of the Bering Sea as a specific circumstance was used for delimitation of economic domains of the two countries in the Pacific and Arctic Oceans and fixed in the 1990 USSR-USA Maritime Boundary Agreement. This line is known now as the Baker-Shevardnadze line.
However, the international practice in such cases offers a method of a median line for delimitation of disputable areas. The median line between the USSR and USA areas in the Bering Strait, Bering and Chukchi Seas actually runs as shown through three median points between the Soviet and American lands in the Bering Sea fixed in the Russian-American Convention of 1867. The delineation should have related to a free space between the USSR and USA in the central part of the Bering Sea (so-called “Blue Zone”), which is beyond the 200-mile economic zones of the USSR and USA but is surrounded by these zones.
Due to signing the 1990 Agreement and its coming in force Russia lost 40,000 sq. miles (about 137,000 sq.km) of ocean waters and seabed. The estimate data on the USSR (Russia) losses of the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf are the following. According to geological surveys in the North-Eastern regions of the country four fifth of potential oil basins locate either partially or fully in the sea areas. As of 1980, expected reserves of hydrocarbons only in surveyed areas of the shelf and continental slope may total 44 billion tons of crude oil and 28.6 trillion cubic meters of natural gas that amounts to 16 per cent of the expected world reserves. By the way, besides the oil and gas fields the seabed here contains Fe and Mn noddles – the ore of future.
There are the following legal collisions associated with implementation of the Agreement.
Firstly, introduction into effect of the 1990 Maritime Boundary Agreement between the USSR and USA violated the RSFSR constitutional authorities with respect to conclusion of the Agreement that were completely denied by the USSR Government. The introduction of the Agreement into effect by the applied note of Foreign Minister E. Shevardnadze in response to the note of US State Secretary Baker is illegal.
Secondly, the 1990 Maritime Boundary Agreement between the USSR and USA was not ratified by the supreme legislative bodies of the USSR, RFSFR and modern Russian Federation in the period from 1990 to 2008. In 1997, the State Duma of the Russian Federation refused to ratify this Agreement. In 2002 – 2003, the State Duma and Council of Federation of the Russian Federation in their resolutions adopted based on the results of the hearings devoted to the Maritime Boundary Agreement, empasized that this agreement is in conflict with the national interests of Russia. Its implementation causes actual damage to the Russian fishing industry today and will cause damage to mining of mineral resources on the seabed in future.
Thirdly, in 1990, the legislative body of the State of Alaska adopted Resolution HJR 27 on the Russian-American talks on the maritime boundary, which challenged the legality of the boundary between the USA and Russian Federation because the Maritime Boundary Agreement was concluded without participation of Alaska’s representatives in the talks and without consent of the state to the terms and conditions of the Agreement. In so doing, it raised a claim for the following seven islands with adjacent waters and seabed: Wrangel Island, Herald Island, Bennett Island, Jeannette Island in the Arctic Ocean and Copper Island, Sea Lion Rock and Sea Otter Rock in the western part of Aleutians.
Fourthly, under the 1990 Agreement the USSR and USA separated between each other a central part of the Bering Sea, which is neither a 200-mile economic zone nor a continental shelf but generally an international area of the seabed that belongs to the entire mankind. Other states interested in the resources of the seabed in the Bering Sea may contest the Agreement.
Fifthly, the United States is not a participant of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Therefore it has no right use its provisions, e.g. a notion of exclusive economic zone and other legal norms.
It seems that a future bilateral dialogue between the Russian Federation and United States on the 1990 Maritime Boundary Agreement and its revision are inevitable.
It is desirable to conduct special joint Russian-American consultations to settle a problem relating to the continental shelf in the central part of the Bering Sea, including possible conduct of joint survey and development of natural resources in this area in future.
Solution of these problems would comply with the principles of justness and international law, settle the conflict situation and meet national interests of the concerned countries - Russia and the USA.
