Oil in Troubled Waters: The politics of Oil in the Timor Sea

When East Timor voted in 1999 to opt for independence from the occupation of Indonesia, its main hope for economic stability lay in accessing a fair share of the oil reserves of the Timor Sea. The island of Timor is separated from the Australian mainland by the same sea. Who would have the right to benefit from that oil? Australia already had oil wells operating on the North West shelf and claimed a maritime boundary that reached hundreds of kilometers across the Timor Sea to the edge of its continental shelf, only a few kilometers from Timor's eastern coastline. Was this fair? Was it 'legal'? This book looks at the complexities of boundaries: maritime, economic and the many other 'terms' beloved of international lawyers. It examines how the laws of the sea affected other nations with narrow (and not so narrow) bodies of water between them, and how disputes were settled, or, in several cases, never settled! Where do you draw the line between two countries? Draw it down the middle, the median or where? Half way? It seems so simple. But it is not.