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Tobago's Self-Governance and Legal Separation from T'dad
Posted: Saturday, July 21, 2012
By Stephen Kangal
July 21, 2012
If Tobago were to be accorded full and effective internal self-governance in the current climate, it is mandatory that boundaries separating the domestic jurisdiction of both islands have to be established to demarcate the maritime limits of the reach of their respective law –creating capacity to avoid over-lapping or concurrent jurisdiction and reduce potential conflict.
Hitherto the erroneous criterion for marking these boundaries in Section 141 E of the Green Paper is the seaward limit of a ten-mile territorial sea (TS) measured from the baselines. Section 1:4 (2) of the Draft THA Bill leaves this TS limit open-ended. No definition has been put forward to establish the reach and application of laws intended for implementation exclusively within Trinidad's jurisdictional space. Hence the definition below.
What legal drafters of both documents did not address are the following:- There are no areas of the territorial sea located between the baselines and between the islands of Tobago and Trinidad.
- There are only maritime areas designated as archipelagic/internal waters
- These archipelagic waters together with the off-shore islands of Tobago are excluded from the scope of the laws to be created by the new THA
- The need consequently to identify alternative criteria to establish the mandatory limits in the intervening archipelagic waters since the 10-mile TS will not apply here.
- What exactly are the "baselines of Tobago", where do they begin and end since there are no baselines off the south-west, south and south-east coasts of Tobago?
- There are no territorial sea/baselines enclosing each island separately.
To deal adequately with these issues I propose for consideration after having posted the Tobago definition in my last article the following two draft definitions of Trinidad in the context of the dialogue for legislating internal self-governance for Tobago:
"Trinidad will comprise the island of Trinidad and other islands that are enclosed landward of the archipelagic baselines drawn around it as well as its archipelagic waters, the 12-mile territorial sea and their respective superjacent air-space and shall also exercise, inter alia, sovereign rights, in accordance with Part III of Act No 24 of 1986, over the living and non-living resources appurtenant to its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)) situated beyond the territorial sea and extending to the bilateral boundaries established with neighbouring states as well as to the jurisdictional limits mutually established in the intervening maritime areas separating the island of Trinidad from Tobago."
OR
Definition of Trinidad to include islands
Trinidad will comprise the island of Trinidad and the islands of Monos, Gasparee, Nelson, Chacachacaree and other islands located landward of the archipelagic baselines drawn around it as well as its archipelagic waters, the 12-mile territorial sea and their respective superjacent air-space and shall also exercise, inter alia, sovereign rights, in accordance with Part III of Act No 24 of 1986, over the living and non-living resources appurtenant to its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and Continental Shelf situated beyond the territorial sea and extending to the bilateral boundaries established with neighbouring states as well as to the jurisdictional limits mutually established in the intervening maritime areas separating the island of Trinidad.
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