BEIJING, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- The fledgling Southeast Asian nation of Timor-Leste has taken its big neighbor Australia to a UN conciliation commission at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague in a bid to settle their maritime boundary dispute.
Canberra, brandishing existing treaties it signed with Dili, has refused to engage in bilateral talks for the demarcation of a permanent boundary in the Timor Sea, and argued that the conciliation commission handling the case has no jurisdiction.
Yet Dili called the validity of the treaties in question, noting that the Australians played dirty tricks and gained unfair advantages in the negotiations. It urged Canberra not to turn its back on the law.
TIMOR-LESTE: NOT ASKING FOR FAVORS
At the opening session of the compulsory conciliation on Aug. 29 in The Hague, Timor-Leste insisted that it only wants what rightfully belongs to it.
"We have not come to The Hague to ask for favors or special treatment. We have come to seek our rights under international law," Xanana Gusmao, Timor-Leste's independence hero and first president, told the five-member commission, which was formed under the auspices of the PCA.
Gusmao, who also served as Timor-Leste prime minister, said his country is willing to negotiate with Australia, but the latter "turns its back on the law" by having refused to do so.
In March, more than 1,000 people gathered in front of the Australian embassy in Dili, protesting Canberra's refusal to hold bilateral discussions over the maritime boundary.
To further strengthen its position in the hearing, the Timor-Leste government has also launched a Policy Paper on Maritime Boundaries, which reiterates its stand that the maritime boundary should be a median line equidistant between the two countries, which would give Dili much larger oil- and gas-rich areas of the Timor Sea.
If Timor-Leste and Australia cannot reach any agreement, the conciliation commission will provide a report to the UN secretary general with recommendations to assist resolution, and the two sides will then be obliged to negotiate in good faith on the basis of the commission's report, according to the Maritime Boarder Office of Timor-Leste.
AUSTRALIA: PCA DECISION NOT BINDING
Australia, however, insists that the PCA commission has no jurisdiction over the case, and that even if it rules it has, its decision will not be binding.
"The Commission does not have jurisdiction to conduct hearings on maritime boundaries," said a joint statement of Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Attorney-General George Brandis issued on Aug. 29.
"If the Commission ultimately finds that it does have jurisdiction to hear matters on maritime boundaries, then its final report on that matter is not binding," they added.
Australia claims that the existing treaties between Canberra and Dili are reasonable and should be respected. Some have also alleged that a formal demarcation would not be as generous to Timor-Leste as the existing deal.
A treaty in particular is the 2006 Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS), which provides for an equal distribution of revenues from the Greater Sunrise oil and gas deposits, a joint development area in the Timor Sea where the two sides have overlapping claims. It also imposes a 50-year moratorium on claims to sovereign rights and demarcation of maritime boundaries.
Canberra has fixed its eyes on Timor Sea oil and gas resources for long. It endorsed Indonesia's 1975-1999 occupation of Timor-Leste to facilitate its exploitation. It was the only Western nation to recognize Indonesia's annexation of Timor-Leste.
BUGGING, BULLYING, CHEATING
Yet the validity of the CMATS is now under question, after revelations in 2012 that Australian agents, posing as aid workers, bugged Timor-Leste's cabinet room and gained unfair advantages in the negotiation process that led to the 2006 treaty.
"When this came to light, we were shocked and appalled," said Gusmao, who now serves as a minister in the Timor-Leste government, at the PCA hearing.
In an article published on Aug. 28 on British daily The Guardian, Ben Saul, an international law professor at the University of Sydney, noted that the espionage claims have painted Australia "as the neighborhood cheat and bully."
Two months before Timor-Leste's independence, Australia cunningly excluded itself from the compulsory settlement of maritime boundary disputes at the International Court of Justice and under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
On the very day of Timor-Leste's independence on May 20, 2002, Canberra and Dili signed the Timor Sea Treaty, which largely inherited a 1989 treaty between Australia and Indonesia and set the temporary sea boundary line much closer to Timor-Leste than to Australia.
After Timor-Leste initiated an arbitration in 2013 following the bugging revelations, Australian agents raided the office in suburban Canberra of a lawyer representing Dili in the case and seized a trove of documents. The lawyer is a former Australian Secret Intelligence Service officer.
Such sly and high-handed behavior has prompted accusations that Canberra exploited its small neighbor's most vulnerable times to gain self-interests.
Speaking at the PCA hearing of the Timor Sea Treaty, Gusmao said, "on the very day of the restoration of our independence, we were faced with the indignity of having to sign" the deal.
"At the time Timor had nothing. Our land was scorched, our people killed... We had no money, forcing us to beg," he added.
