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1 WHAT PRECEDED

Maritime boundary delimitation in the Baltic Sea is

characterized by a clear historic caesura, to wit the

disappearance of the Soviet Union from the political

map of the world on December 25, 1991. Up till that

time the maritime boundary delimitation practice in

the Baltic Sea had in general witnessed a development

similar to that in other regions. Being a confined area

where opposite coasts are never more than 400

nautical miles apart, this required coastal States not

only to delimit their lateral maritime boundaries, but

also each time their maritime boundary with the

country or countries lying opposite. This intense

delimitation effort moreover occurred in an area

where the East and West met after the second World

War, i.e. at a time that maritime delimitation really

started to gain in importance with the creation of the

continental shelf notion. But these political

divergencies did not particularly seem to burden the

countries when trying to reach practical delimitation

arrangements. Indeed, when compared to the North

Sea, where this ideological division was totally absent,

it is remarkable to notice that the construction of

Maritime Delimitation in the Baltic Sea: An Update

E. Franckx

Free University of Brussels-VUB, Brussels, Belgium

ABSTRACT: The present contribution is a follow-up to an article published in the same journal about a decade

ago on the accomplishments by coastal States in the restricted area of the Baltic Sea with respect to the

delimitation of their different maritime zones [6]. The research ofn which both contributions are based is related

to the work accomplished by the present author in the framework of a world-wide project initiated by the

American Society of International Law during the late 1980s, which intended to provide an in-depth analysis of

the State practice arising from the more than 100 existing maritime boundary delimitation agreements already

concluded at that time. That project is still on-going and finds its reflection in the publication “International

Maritime Boundaries”, of which eight volumes have seen the light of day so far, the latest one in 2020.

In this follow-up article three new agreements have to be mentioned. It concerns, in chronological order of

signature, the tripoint agreement concluded between Lithuania, Russia and Sweden of 2005,

the agreement

between Lithuania and Sweden of 2014,

and the Denmark-Poland agreement of 2018.

All of these agreements

have in the meantime entered into force

and will form the central part of the present contribution (Part II). But

in order to be able to understand the exact place of these agreements in the overall maritime delimitation

picture of the Baltic Sea, a very broad sketch will first be provided of what preceded these recent three additions

(Part I). Both these parts, unless otherwise indicated, rely on previously published material listed in the

bibliography either at the end of the article that is being updated concerning Part I, or the more recent works

listed at the end of the present contribution concerning Part II. Finally, some conclusions will be drawn (Part

III).

http://www.transnav.eu

the International Journal

on Marine Navigation

and Safety of Sea Transportation

Volume 15

Number 4

December 2021

DOI: 10.12716/1001.15.04.22

886

maritime boundaries had reached a higher degree of

completion in the Baltic Sea by the early 1990s,

dispelling the widely held misconception that

countries with similar political and economic systems

agree more easily on a particular maritime boundary.

Nevertheless, the disintegration of the Soviet

Union, alluded to above, and the related reunification

of Germany and regained independence of Estonia,

Latvia and Lithuania, thoroughly reshuffled the

delimitation cards in the Baltic Sea. With one country

disappearing, to wit the German Democratic

Republic, and three new countries emerging once

again, namely the Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, some

maritime boundaries simply disappeared,

while

others had to be either simply reaffirmed,

created

where none had existed before,

or drafted “anew”,

while in practice relying heavily on already

previously concluded agreements in the area.

These

political changes introduced the contemporary period

in the maritime delimitation effort of the Baltic Sea

that is still continuing today. [2, 3]

If one tries to somewhat group these agreements

for didactical purposes, four distinct chronological

periods can be discerned.

1.1 Period 1945-1972

Up to 1991, three different periods can be

distinguished in the drive towards delimitation of this

regional sea, the first of which is characterized by the

fundamental East-West divide that characterized the

area after the end of World War II. This period lasted

from 1945 until 1972 and proved mostly an

opportunity for East bloc countries to try to

consolidate their maritime claims in international law,

like an early 12 nautical miles territorial sea claim

a continental shelf claim for the German Democratic

Republic.

1.2 Period 1973-1985

A second period covers the period 1973-1985 and

is characterized by the normalization of relations

between the two Germanies, as evidenced by their

joint admittance to United Nations membership on 18

September 1973. This not only opened the door for

maritime boundaries to be concluded between

themselves, but also between countries on either side

of the Iron Curtain more generally.

No matter how

important these early agreements between countries

belonging to different blocs might have been from a

political point of view, their importance from a

maritime delimitation point of view remained

marginal as the boundaries concluded were short in

distance and moreover concerned areas that were

rather devoid of circumstances usually complicating

the conclusion of maritime boundary agreements.

1.3 Period 1985-1990

The third period, running from 1985 until 1990,

represented the return to normality in the area as far

as maritime boundary agreements are concerned. This

short period of only five years, proved to be most

productive as more delimitation agreements were

concluded than during all the previous periods

combined. During this period, moreover, more

difficult cases from a maritime boundary settlement

perspective needed to be addressed, such as those

burdened by the presence of sizeable islands close to

the middle of the area to be delimited. After this

thorny issue had been settled between the Soviet

Union and Sweden in 1988, after about 20 years of

negotiations, by means of the division of the disputed

zone calculated on the basis of the respective claims of

the parties

according to a 25%-75% ratio,

this set

the standard for another agreement to follow suit.

This is also the period that maritime boundary

agreements in the Baltic Sea started to address the

issue of the exclusive economic zone, a notion created

during the third United Nations Conference on the

Law of the Sea and reflected in the convention

adopted at the end of that process.

And even though

it took over a decade for the 1982 Convention to enter

into force, the International Court of Justice had

already clearly come to the conclusion by the

beginning of this third chronological period that this

newly created maritime zone formed part and parcel

of customary international law.

By the end of this third period the delimitation in

the Baltic Sea had reached a rather high degree of

completion. Apart from one short segment that still

had to be delimited between Denmark and Poland,

namely south and southeast of Bornholm, and a few

remaining tripoints, all maritime boundaries had been

settled. At that time it could convincingly be argued

that the Baltic Sea stood out as a model region as far

as maritime boundary delimitation was concerned.

1.4 Period 1991-present

But this achievement was not set in stone, as it quickly

started to unravel with the fundamental political

changes taking place in early 1990s alluded to above,

necessitating not only many new agreements to be

concluded, but also the clarification of the exact legal

status of some agreements that had already been

concluded. The former East-West divide took on a

totally new dimension because all Baltic Sea coastal

States had joined the European Union by 2004, with

the sole exception of the Russian Federation, whose

coastal length in the region was substantially reduced

and moreover restricted itself to the Kaliningrad

enclave and the cul-the-sac at the eastern extremity of

the Gulf of Finland. These developments characterize

the fourth, and so far last period that can be discerned

in the maritime delimitation effort in the Baltic Sea.

This period thus runs from the end 1991 and still

continues today.

During this fourth period most of the newly

emerged maritime boundaries have been settled in the

meantime. In chronological order of their conclusion,

it concerns the boundaries between Estonia and Latvia

(1996), Lithuania and the Russian Federation (1997),

Latvia and Lithuania (1999), and finally Estonia and

the Russian Federation (2005). Unfortunately, this

does not mean that all these agreements are

operational at present. The one between Latvia and

Lithuania is still awaiting entry into force and the fate

of the agreement between Estonia and the Russian

887

Federation became even more dubious after the latter

country withdrew its signature on 6 September 2005

in reaction to the addition of an introductory

declaration by the Estonian Parliament to the

proposed law of ratification that made explicit

reference to particular sensitive historical issues that

had been carefully avoided in the text of the

delimitation agreement itself by those who had

negotiated it.

A second signing ceremony followed

in 2014, but this slightly amended agreement has not

yet entered into force either.

A far more delicate issue was the legal value to be

attributed to previously concluded maritime

boundaries by the Soviet Union when that country no

longer constituted the coastal State on one side of the

maritime boundary agreed upon. Latvia, Lithuania

and Estonia claimed that their maritime boundary

status should return to the situation ante quo, meaning

before the claimed illegal annexation by the Soviet

Union. But the countries on the opposite side of these

already concluded boundaries, namely Finland and

Sweden, were rather of the opinion that these existing

agreements still governed the maritime delimitation

in question, a position fully endorsed by the Russian

Federation. In hindsight it can be stated that the way

out for the countries involved has been to conclude

new agreements arriving at the same delimitation line

without explicitly making reference to the agreement

first establishing this line. One of the agreements that

will be discussed in Part II clearly illustrates how such

a delicate balance can be achieved in practice.

Finally, during this fourth period the process of

settling the remaining tripoints continued as

illustrated, once again, by one of the agreements that

will be discussed in Part II.

2 THREE NEW AGREEMENTS

As already mentioned above, three new agreements

saw the light of day

and entered into force after 16

June 2011,

day of the presentation of the first paper

which the present one updates. These agreements,

even though limited in number, nevertheless give a

good overview of the different types of agreement

that remained to be settled during this fourth

chronological period that characterizes the

delimitation process in the Baltic Sea.

2.1 2005 Tripoint Agreement

Tripoint agreements in the Baltic Sea are characterized

by the fact that States, when reaching an agreement on

their bilateral maritime boundary, always stop short

of the tripoints, leaving the latter to be settled by later

negotiations between all the parties involved. This

trilateral process, as a rule, is only started after all the

relevant bi-lateral agreements have been concluded,

making it the last step in the process. It should

consequently not surprise that the first such

agreement inside the Baltic Sea proper, i.e. excluding

Skagerrak, Kattegat and the Sound, was only

concluded in 1989.

The two tripoint agreements that followed the one

concluded in 1989 just mentioned, on the other hand,

were all concluded after the political changes in the

early 1990s and were directly related to the

dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Such agreement

normally only add short segments making the

connection to the tripoint, but these two agreements

also had to tackle the issue of the legal validity of the

maritime boundary agreements previously concluded

by the Soviet Union to which their respective tripoints

had to be connected. Both agreements addressed the

issue in a somewhat different manner.

Estonia had been able to minimize the impact of

the latter issue on the tripoint agreement itself by

concluding new bilateral agreements with Finland

and Sweden first, namely in 1996 and 1998

respectively, which had already addressed that

delicate issue. The 1996 agreement with Finland was

the first time the opposing views in principle, alluded

to above,

had to be reconciled in practice.

Estonia

had already indicated the way when establishing its

economic zone in 1993:

Without explicitly

mentioning any of the previously concluded

delimitation agreements with the Soviet Union, this

national piece of legislation of Estonia nevertheless

implicitly relied on the latter as exactly the same

coordinates were used when determining the outer

limit of its economic zone in the areas covered by

those agreements.

The bilateral agreement of 1996

followed the same approach as the majority

of the

coordinates used can be brought back to the

delimitation line agreed upon between Finland and

the Soviet Union, but without making any reference to

the agreements that had constructed this line over

time. Besides, the fact that the 1998 bilateral

delimitation agreement between Estonia and Sweden

was totally determined by the issue of the legal

validity of a previously concluded delimitation

agreement with the Soviet Union, it tackled this issue

by using exactly the same technique, as had already

been applied by Estonia unilaterally when this

country determined the outer limits of its economic

zone facing Sweden in 1993, namely to take over the

coordinates of the agreement concluded by the Soviet

Union and Sweden in 1988 without making any

specific reference to that agreement, but this time on a

bilateral basis. With this issue out of the way, the

tripoint agreement between Estonia, Finland and

Sweden of 2001 needed only six months to be

concluded after the entry into force of the last bilateral

agreement involved

and entered into force itself a

couple of month later.

Estonia and Latvia took a different approach in

their relation with Sweden as their tripoint was

established at a moment (1997) when only one of the

three bilateral agreements had been concluded that

would connect to that tripoint, namely the one

between Estonia and Latvia (1996).

Indeed, a

provision of this latter agreement determined the last

segment outside the Gulf of Riga by means of a an

azimuth perpendicular to the closing line of that bay

and stipulated that this line would continue until it

would meet the maritime boundary of Sweden, to be

determined by trilateral agreement.

Sweden had

already fixed the outer limit of its own economic zone

in 1992

in an similar manner as Estonia would do a

year later.

By using the same coordinates as those to

888

be found in the 1988 Soviet-Swedish agreement, but

without making any reference to this document, and

by indicating at the same time that no further

negotiations with opposite countries would be

necessary, Sweden drove home its firmly held

position that the maritime boundary agreed upon

with the Soviet Union remained in force. Sweden, in

other words, only had to accept the offer made by the

Estonia and Latvia in their bilateral agreement, while

the latter two countries for the first time officially

accepted in a delimitation agreement a point which in

fact can be traced back to the 1998 Soviet-Swedish

agreement. It should therefore not surprise that this

tripoint agreement needed only one meeting of

technical experts to be concluded.

The 2005 Tripoint Agreement, concluded between

Lithuania, Russia and Sweden takes yet another

approach. It is special in that it establishes a tripoint at

a moment when only two of the three bilateral

agreements had been agreed upon, namely the ones

between the Soviet Union and Sweden in 1988 and

Lithuania and Russia in 1997.

It is moreover not

clear whether the latter agreement indicated the

direction to be followed beyond its terminal point to

the tripoint.

In this case it seems consequently to

have been Lithuania that unilaterally fixed the tripoint

when it declared the limits of its exclusive economic

zone in 2004.

It relied thereby, without specifically

mentioned it, clearly on the previously established

maritime boundary between the Soviet Union and

Sweden. It moreover considered these points in its

national legislation to constitute the maritime

boundary with Sweden. The newly created southern

terminal point of the outer limit of the Lithuanian

maritime zones, located on a segment of the boundary

created in 1988 between the Soviet Union and

Sweden, proved acceptable to both Russia and

Sweden as both countries strongly believed that this

maritime boundary had survived the dissolution of

the Soviet Union in 1991. [4]

The latter probably also explains why the 2005

Tripoint Agreement is the first maritime boundary

agreement concluded by Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania

that explicitly mentions the 1988 Soviet-Swedish

agreement in its text.

After having fought this

semantic battle since the early 1990s to keep up

appearances by refusing any direct references to that

1988 agreement while in fact adopting turning points

of that same agreement or located on the segments in

between, this constituted a clear break with previous

practice in this respect. Moreover, this proved such a

sensitive issue that it took Lithuania until 2011 to

ratify this treaty by law in the Seimas, as the exact

formulation of statement proposed by the Minister of

Foreign Affairs took some time to be finalized and

was moreover adopted as a separate statement by the

Seimas that did not need to accompany the

notification process that the agreement required for its

entry into force. The latter happened soon

afterwards.

2.2 2014 Lithuania-Sweden Agreement

This agreement was only the second one concluded

after the dissolution of the Soviet Union that did not

add any new segment to a maritime boundary in the

area. The other had been the agreement concluded

between Estonia and Sweden in 1988. The main issue

that needed to be tackled was once again the validity

of the 1988 Soviet-Swedish agreement, a legal issue on

which both parties had diverging positions. But

unlike the one concluded between Estonia and

Sweden in 1988, the present one had already one of

tripoints settled beforehand.

The underlying

problem had in other words already had ample time

to be sorted out, not only on the respective national

levels,

but also by means of the 2005 Tripoint

Agreement, where it manifested itself in a rather

special manner because of the explicit reference to the

1988 Soviet-Swedish agreement in that tripoint

agreement.

Both parties consequently had no

fundamental difficulties to rely on the delimitation

line to be found in the 1988 Soviet-Swedish

agreement, but this time, once again, without making

any explicit reference to it.

The bilateral process

made the latter apparently possible again, contrary to

the trilateral negotiations including the Russian

Federation that had seemingly disturbed a constant

practice until then.

[5]

2.3 2018 Denmark-Poland Agreement

The third agreement to be addressed is the only one

not really directly related to the dissolution of the

Soviet Union in 1991, for the area covered by this

agreement already constituted the only remaining

blind spot in the overall Baltic maritime delimitation

process at that moment in time. Negotiations leading

up to this agreement already started during the 1970s

and consequently span a period of more than 40 years.

Of course the political situation in Poland

substantially changed and as long as this country

formed part of the East bloc this might have

influenced the way in which maritime boundaries

were settled between allies,

but this probably had

less influence on the manner in which these countries

started to address maritime boundaries with the

Western countries in the Baltic Sea since the 1970s,

besides maybe the fact that they were able to rely on

each other’s experiences with third countries, as

illustrated next. [1]

The crux of the dispute between the parties was to

be found in the fact that the delimitation in question

operates between an island and a mainland coast. This

by itself was not that exceptional in the Baltic Sea and

in fact, Poland had already addressed this issue in its

maritime boundary delimitation with Sweden in 1989

where the exact effect to be given to the island of

Gotland, belonging to Sweden and influencing the

northern part of that boundary, needed to be solved.

The parties had diametrically opposed opinions as

Poland was of the opinion that the delimitation

should be operated between mainland coasts, whereas

Sweden was of the opinion that Gotland should be

given full effect. The latter country had already been

squarely confronted with this issue in its relation with

the Soviet Union where the final compromise in 1988

had taken the form of a 75% effect to be attributed to

the island. Poland and Sweden agreed to a similar

solution the year afterward.

But what makes the present delimitation stand out

from these precedents just mentioned is that

889

Bornholm is not located in front of the Danish, but a

foreign coast.

The initial positions of Denmark and

Poland where again that either full or no effect should

be given to the Danish islands, resulting in a gray area

of about 3,600 square kilometers. As the negotiations

to solve this underlying dispute could not be solved

during negotiations held between the parties in 1991,

the dispute over the gray zone lingered on. When

Poland became a member country of the European

Union on 1 May 2004, the fishery issue became moot

between the parties as that area would be regulated by

the European Common Fisheries Policy. Moreover,

after the Danish Energy Agency concluded that

commercial oil and gas discoveries were unlikely to

be found in the area and in 2018 that government

moreover decided that it would not grant any

permissions any longer in the Baltic Sea, also the

importance of exploration and exploitation of

hydrocarbon resources in the gray area drastically

diminished. In fact, during the decade prior to the

signature the gray area had been characterized by the

absence of any concrete disturbances between the

parties because of living or non-living resources.

A new, and as it turned out final round of

negotiations started on 1 March 2018, leading to a

final breakthrough whereby Denmark was awarded

80% of the gray area, and Poland 20%. It can be

described as an adjusted median line, since roughly

the same part of the line finally agreed upon is based

on the original Danish and Polish claims,

with the

remaining turning points chosen in such a manner as

to attribute 80% of the gray area to Denmark and the

remaining part to Poland.

This compromise received the full support of the

Danish parliament covering the entire political

spectrum, but the same can hardly be said with

respect to Poland where the opposition voted against

it because it was simply considered to be a bad deal

after so many years of negotiations. And indeed,

neither the agreement itself, nor the official

documents that accompanied it in either parliament,

explain how this 20%-80% ratio was arrived at. It is

only when reading through the parliamentary

discussions that took place in both parliaments and

reports that appeared in the press, that one is able to

lift a tip of the veil and comes to understand that the

2018 Denmark-Poland Agreement needs apparently to

be linked to another agreement concluded between

the same two parties about a month later on the Baltic

Pipe project.

This pipeline, considered essential for

Poland’s energy security, runs through the gray area

when connecting Zealand and the Polish coast. The

agreement moreover provided that the operation of

the last segment of the pipeline would remain in

Polish hands. The link between the two agreements

would at least help to explain why after over 40 years

of stalemate, a solution was finally found in 2018

according to a ratio moreover, which defies another

generally accepted ratio influencing maritime

boundary delimitation, namely the ratio between the

length of the relevant coastlines, which in this

particular case clearly pointed to the advantage of

Poland.

The agreement remains silent on the tripoint issue

on both sides, but given the general practice in the

Baltic Sea of bilateral maritime boundary agreements

always stopping short of tripoints, I can be presumed

that the starting and terminal points of the 2018

Denmark-Poland Agreement still have to be

connected to their respective tripoints.

A final observation about this agreement that may

not pass unnoticed, is that the 2018 Denmark-Poland

Agreement is the first maritime boundary agreement

ever concluded in the Baltic Sea that was not signed in

a city located in one of the participating States, but

rather in Brussels, the capital of Europe, apparently

out of convenience.

3 CONCLUSIONS

The Baltic Sea has reached, once again, a stage of

completeness in maritime boundary delimitation that

not only resembles the situation at the beginning of

the 1990s, just before the disappearance of one coastal

State in the area, the reemergence of three others and

the lessening of the fundamental divide between East

and West, but even surpasses it, as all areas requiring

bilateral action have now been covered. The great

majority of these bilateral boundaries have been

settled by agreements that have entered into force,

even though in two cases the exchange of the

instruments of ratification has not yet occurred. It

concerns first of al the boundary agreement concluded

between Latvia and Lithuania in 1999, and secondly

the agreement between Estonia and the Russian

Federation that has even been signed twice by now, in

2005 and 2014, but nevertheless has still not yet

entered into force.

What remains in essence, therefore, are tripoint

agreements. Those areas were all related bilateral

agreements are already in place are most promising. It

concerns foremost the two tripoints relating to the

2018 Denmark-Poland Agreement. But also between

Denmark, Germany and Sweden, on the one hand,

and Denmark (Bornholm), Germany and Sweden, on

the other hand, both located in the southwestern

Baltic Sea, belong to this category. Those tripoints that

concern the rare boundaries that have been signed but

have not yet entered into force, alluded to in the

previous paragraph, will probably take some more

time, awaiting the resolution of the respective

underlying problems. Finally, whether Latvia and

Sweden will still consider it useful to conclude a

“new” maritime boundary, remains at present an

open question.

Despite these few outstanding issues, one can

already now predict with a degree of certainty that the

Baltic Sea will at the end stand out as a region where

all maritime boundary delimitations will have been

carried out by the coastal States themselves, without

any reliance on binding third party dispute settlement

procedures.

REFERENCES

1. Franckx, E.: Denmark-Poland (Report Number 10-25).

In: Lathrop, C.G. (ed.) International Maritime

Boundaries. Brill Nijhoff (2021).

890

2. Franckx, E.: Estonia-Russia (Report Number 10-22). In:

Colson, D.A. and Smith, R.W. (eds.) International

Maritime Boundaries. pp. 4567–4584 Leiden, Martinus

Nijhoff (2011).

3. Franckx, E.: Gaps in Baltic Sea Maritime Boundaries. In:

Ringbom, H. (ed.) Regulatory Gaps in Baltic Sea

Governance: Selected Issues. Springer International

Publishing (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-

75070-5.

4. Franckx, E.: Lithuania-Russia-Sweden [Report Number

10-23]. In: Lathrop, C.G. (ed.) International Maritime

Boundaries. p. 5731 – 5741 Brill Nijhoff (2020).

5. Franckx, E.: Lithuania-Sweden (Report Number 10-24).

In: Lathrop, C.G. (ed.) International Maritime

Boundaries. p. 5743 – 5760 Brill Nijhoff (2020).

6. Franckx, E.: Maritime Delimitation in the Baltic Sea:

What Has Already Been Accomplished? TransNav, the

International Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety

of Sea Transportation. 6, 3, 437–442 (2012).

Coalter G. Lapthrop

(ed.), International Maritime Bounda-

ries, vol. 8, Leiden, Brill Nijhoff, 2020, pp. 53375813.

Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Lith-

uania, the Government of the Russian Federation and the Gov-

ernment of the Kingdom of Sweden on the Common Point of

Boundaries of the Exclusive Economic Zones and the Continen-

tal Shelf in the Baltic Sea. Lithuania; Russian Federation; Swe-

den, 30 November 2005, United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS),

registration number 53411 (no UNTS volume number has yet

been determined). Herinafter 2005 Tripoint Agreement.

Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Lith-

uania and the Government of the Kingdom of Sweden on the

Delimitation of the Exclusive Economic Zones and the Continen-

tal Shelf in the Baltic Sea. Lithuania; Sweden, 10 April 2014,

UNTS, registration number 53412 (no UNTS volume number

has yet been determined). Hereinafter 2014 Lithuania-Sweden

Agreement.

Agreement between the Republic of Poland and the Kingdom

of Denmark Concerning the Delimitation of Maritime Zones in

the Baltic Sea. Denmark; Poland, 19 November 2018. Not yet

registered with the Secretariat of the United Nations. Reference

can be made to the official journals of Denmark and Poland, as

English is one of the authentic texts of the agreement: Folker-

inget, Folketingstidende Tillaeg A, Beslutningsforslag nr. B69,

Folketinget 2018-19, pp. 4-7; Dziennik Ustaw, 4 July 2019, Item

1240, pp. 1-12. Hereinafter 2018 Denmark-Poland Agreement.

Namely on 17 June 2011, 23 December 2014 and 28 June

2019 respectively. All these agreements entered into force after

the presentation by the present author of his first report on the

issue at the occasion of the 9

International Symposium Trans-

Nav 2011, on 16 June 2011.

As for instance the Protocol Note between the Federal Re-

public of Germany and the German Democratic Republic Con-

cerning the Boundary in Lübeck Bay. Federal Republic of Ger-

many; German Democratic Republic, 29 June 1974, Limits in

the Seas, No. 74, 1974, p. 1. This Protocol entered into force on 1

October 1974.

See for instance the Treaty between the Federal Republic of

Germany and the Republic of Poland Concerning the Confirma-

tion of the Frontier Existing between Them. Federal Republic of

Germany; Poland, 14 November 1990, International Legal Ma-

terials, vol. 31, issue 6, 1992, pp. 1292-1294. This treaty entered

into force on 16 January 1992.

As between Russia (Kaliningrad Region) and Lithuania;

Lithuania and Latvia; Latvia and Estonia; and Estonia and

Russia. The Soviet Union had not delimited the offshore mari-

time spaces between its former republics because their legal re-

gime remained Union competence. Moreover, as Estonia, Latvia

and Lithuania were all incorporated into the Soviet Union dur-

ing the month of August 1940, these countries had only sporadi-

cally addressed the delimitation of their adjacent territorial seas,

but not of their continental shelves or extended fishery

zones/exclusive economic zones, as these notions had not yet

emerged in international law.

The very intricate issue of how to deal with pre-existing

agreements concluded by the Soviet Union, especially when

viewed from the perspective of the three Baltic republics that

had regained their independence and did not consider them-

selves bound by these pre-existing boundary agreements be-

cause of the alleged illegality of their annexation into the Soviet

Union, proved a difficult issue to tackle in practice for the par-

ties involved.

The agreement signed between Poland and the Soviet Union

in 1958 (Protocol between the Government of the Polish People’s

Republic and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist

Republics Concerning the Delimitation of Polish and Soviet Ter-

ritorial Waters in the Gulf of Gdansk of the Baltic Sea. Poland;

Soviet Union, 18 March 1958, UNTS, vol. 340, 89, 94-96 (1959)),

about a month before the signature of the Geneva convention on

the same topic (Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Con-

tiguous Zone. Multilateral convention, 29 April 1958, UNTS, vol.

516, pp. 205, 206-224 (1966). This convention entered into force

on 10 September 1964)), is indicative. Even though the latter

convention did not settle the matter in a definitive manner (Art.

3), at least the territorial sea and contiguous zone together

could not extend beyond 12 nautical miles (Art. 24). It is moreo-

ver interesting to note that the delimitation line agreed upon

concerns the adjacent territorial seas of the parties up to 3 nau-

tical miles and subsequently continues in the same direction to

the outer limit of the Soviet territorial waters, located at 12

nautical miles from the terminal point of their State frontier.

By concluding a continental shelf agreements with a neigh-

boring East bloc country, the German Democratic Republic af-

firmed its right to claim such a zone in its own right, something

which was very much contested at that time by its western

neighbour. The conclusion of this agreement itself was further-

more founded on the conclusion six day before of the so-called

Moscow declaration, signed by the German Democratic Republic,

Poland and the Soviet Union (Declaration on the Continental

Shelf of the Baltic Sea, 23 October 1968, International Legal

Materials, vol. 7, issue 6, 1968, pp. 1393-1394).

Up till that time only neutral Finland had been participat-

ing in such an exercise.

The Soviet Union was of the opinion that the median line

should be measured between the mainland of both countries,

while Sweden rather considered that full effect should be given

to the Swedish islands of Gotland and Gotska Sandön.

This was linked to the fishery issue by means of the intro-

duction of an identical 25%-75% ratio, but this time the country

receiving the lesser part of the disputed area would receive 75%

of the fishing rights in the other country’s part of the disputed

zone.

As the northern part of the boundary agreed upon between

Poland and Sweden ten months later also depended on the

weight to be given to the Swedish Island of Gotland, Poland had

initially taken the same position as the Soviet Union, meaning

that the median line should be measured between mainland

coasts whereas Sweden once again was rather of the opinion

that full effect should be given to Gotland. The parties finally

settled for a 25%-75% ratio to the advantage of Sweden.

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Multilat-

eral convention, 10 December 1982, UNTS, vol. 1833, 1988, pp.

3, 397-581, Part V (Arts 55-75). This convention entered into

force on 16 November 1994. Hereinafter 1982 Convention.

Continental Shelf (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya/Malta), Judg-

ment, I.C.J. Reports 1985, p. 13, 33 (para. 34).

It concerned the assertion of legal continuity of the Estonian

Republic proclaimed in 1918, on the one hand, and a reference

to the Tartu Peace Treaty (Peace Treaty. Estonia and Russia, 2

February 1920, League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 11, pp. 50-

70. This treaty entered into force on 30 March 1920), on the oth-

er hand.

See

supra

notes 2-4, respectively.

See

supra

note 5.

It concerned a tripoint between Poland, the Soviet Union

and Sweden.

Namely the agreements concluded in 1997 between Estonia,

Latvia and Sweden and in 2001 between Estonia, Finland and

Sweden.

See

supra

under Part I (4).

Both parties had initially addressed the issue by concluding

an agreement in 1992 by means of which they accepted the pro-

visional application until 9 January 1995 of a number of treaties,

including all the maritime delimitation agreements that Finland

had already concluded with the Soviet Union. When it was real-

ized that the conclusion of the new boundary agreement would

require more time, that period was prolonged for another two

years. That proved just long enough for the 1996 agreement to

enter into force.

Estonia, Economic Zone Act, 28 January 1993, Law of the

Sea Bulletin, issue 25, 1994, pp. 55-64.

891

This long stretch of maritime boundary between Finland

and the Soviet Union was arrived at by means of three agree-

ments adding new segments, concluded between 1965 and 1980,

and one later agreement of 1985 stipulating that all these seg-

ments arrived at, which delimited different types of jurisdiction,

are now said to be delimiting simultaneously the economic zone,

fishery zone and continental shelf of the parties. It is notewor-

thy to stress in this respect that these three agreements adding

new segments did not all use the same coordinate system. Nev-

ertheless, the Estonian Economic Zone Act of 1993, by simply

taking over these coordinates, produces in fact a list that mixes

coordinate system without any indication how to avoid the car-

tographical confusion so created.

As this agreement added a new stretch of 30 nautical miles

towards the tripoint in the west, this new segment is unrelated

to the former agreements concluded with the Soviet Union.

The bilateral delimitation agreement between Estonia and

Sweden entered into force on 26 July 2000.

Namely on 12 August 2001.

This agreement entered into force about three months after

signature, namely on 10 October 1996.

Art. 3.

Ordinance on Sweden’s Exclusive Economic Zone, 3 Decem

ber 1992, Law of the Sea Bulletin, issue 26, 1994, pp. 31-33.

See

supra

note 25 and accompanying text.

It is interesting to note that this agreement, signed in 1997,

only entered into force many years later, namely on 12 August

2003, because of reticence in the Russian Duma related to the

status of Klaipeda.

It makes explicit reference to the tripoint while at the same

time providing that the latter will be fixed by means of trilateral

negotiations. Art. 1 (1)

juncto

Art. 2 (4). The agreement between

Estonia and Latvia, on the other hand, did clearly indicate how

the connection with the tripoint was to be established in a bilat-

eral manner. See

supra

note 31 and accompanying text.

Resolution No. 1597 on the Approval of the Limits of the

Territorial Sea, Contiguous Zone, Exclusive Economic Zone and

Continental Shelf of the Republic of Lithuania and the Assign-

ment to Ministries and Government Institutions to Prepare the

Required Legal Acts, Law of the Sea Bulletin, issue 61, 2006, pp.

17-21.

Art. 1

in fine

On 17 June 2011.

Namely the 2005 Tripoint Agreement, as just discussed.

Concerning Lithuania, see

supra

note 36 and accompanying

text. With respect to Sweden, see

supra

note 32 and accompany-

ing text.

See

supra

note 37 and accompanying text.

The agreement entered into force on 23 December 2014.

See

supra

note 37 and accompanying text.

See for instance

Natalia Jackowska

, The Border Controver-

sy Between the Polish People's Republic and the German Demo-

cratic Republic in the Pomeranian Bay, Przeglad Zachodni, is-

sue 3, 2008, pp. 103117, discussing how the façade of

internationalist fraternity in fact covered a much more complex

reality.

See

supra

note 12 and accompanying text.

Besides Bornholm, to the east, a smaller Danish island

group of Ertholmene has moreover to be taken into account, of

which the most eastern skerry, Østerskær, constitutes Den

mark’s easternmost point, for away from the Danish mainland

facing the North Sea.

Both segments on the extremity of the delimitation line re-

flect rather the original Polish claim, whereas the middle part

represents the median line between Bornholm and the Polish

coast, which represents the Danish initial position.

For more information on this project, see https://www.baltic-

pipe.eu/. This pipeline links the Norwegian North Sea gas de-

posits with Poland.