Norwegian Baselines, Maritime Boundaries and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea

• Author: Bjørn Geirr Harsson, George Preiss
• Pages: 106-127

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Norwegian Baselines, Maritime

Boundaries and the UN Convention

on the Law of the Sea

Bjørn Geirr Harsson and George Preiss

Bjørn Geirr Harsson, Chief Engineer (Retired), Norwegian Mapping Authority (NMA),

Hønefoss, Norway, formerly responsible in NMA for baselines and maritime bounda-

ries and geodetic consultant for the Norwegian Foreign Ministry 1975–2005. Previous

member of Advisory Board on the Law of the Sea (ABLOS), cur rently geodetic and

cartographic consultant for The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS)

in Hamburg. E-mail: bjorn.geirr.harsson@stat kart.no.

George Preiss, A ssistant Professor, Gjøvik University College, Norway, and formerly

Lieutenant Colonel, Royal Engineers as Chief Geographic Officer at the regional NATO

Headquarters in Os lo. Educated as a geodesist, militar y service included nearly eight

years at the geodetic departments of the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain, involving

amongst others work in the early 1980s on the 6 nation maritime boundaries in the

Southern North Se a. E-mail: george.preiss@hig.no.

Received October 2011, accepted December 2011

Abstract: With the signing of the recent agreement with Russia concerni ng the

maritime boundary in the Barents Sea, it can nally be said that all the maritime

delimitation lines with which Norway is concerned have been equitably resolved

in accordance with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). is

paper reviews the events, diculties, survey procedures and solutions that have

led to the completion of the Norwegian maritime boundary denitions. e vari-

ous UNCLOS concepts of baselines and maritime domains (Territorial Waters,

the Contiguous Zone, and the Exclusive Economic Zone) are explained, and ref-

erence is made to important national and international decre es and judgments

Arctic Review o n Law and Politics, vol. 3, 1/2012 p. 108–129. ISSN 1891-6252

norw egian b aselin es, ma ritime boundar ies

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that have been made over the years. Particular attention is drawn to the impact

and importance of geodet ic considerations on maritime boundary den itions.

Practical consequences have arisen through not taking these geodetic impacts

into account, especially since the advent of satellite navigation systems has ena-

bled much improved positioning accuracy out of sight of land, while enormous

natural resources have been identied and are being extrac ted from national

maritime domains. e article gives an account of the solutions to these geodetic

diculties that have been negotiated with neig hbouring nations.

Key words: United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS, base-

line, territorial sea , contiguous zone, Exclusive Economic Zone = EEZ, maritime

boundaries, geodetic dat um, Norway, Jan Mayen, Svalbard, Bouvet Island.

Introduction1

On 15th September 2010, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway and Prime

Minister Dmitr y Medvedev of Russia signed an agreement in Murmansk on the

mutual maritime b oundary in the Barents Sea. e la st remaining agreement on

Norwegian maritime bounda ries with neighbouring states was thus in place. e

agreement was subsequently ratied by the Norwegian Parliament and the Russian

Duma, and it came into force on 7th July 2011.

It is therefore timely to look back at what happened concerning boundaries and

their associated bas elines up until the completion of this agreement. It is e qually

timely to rev iew how the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has

involved application of the science of geodesy.

The Story behind the Norwegian Baselines

Sovereignty at sea has been in question ever since nation states emerged. Sovereignty

was for a very long ti me determined, according to the pr inciple of power projec-

tion, as being a “sea mile,” where a sea mile was the distance by which a cannon

ball could be projected. However, the length of the sea mile was somewhat variable,

depending as it did on nations individua l abilities with their cannon.

e Nordic sea mile in the 17

th

and 18

th

Centur ies was standa rdized to be a

“German mile” equal to one eenth part of one degree of longitude on the equa-

tor – in other words four minutes of longitude (on the equator). i s “German

mile” was therefore equal to four of the modern nautical miles. e Engl ish sea

1. e article is de veloped on the basis of Bjørn Gei rr Harsson, “Norske gun nlinjer, sjøgrenser

og FNs Havretts konvensjon,” in Kart og Plan (71) Nr 1/2011, p. 52 –62.