Foreign Affairs Minister Rudy Insanally says government is working with several international institutions to revise the current maritime legislation which once completed will replace the Maritime Boundaries Act of 1977.
The minister said the current Act is outdated and does not reflect the country’s rights and entitlements under the recent United Nations Tribunal ruling on the maritime boundary between Guyana and Suriname.
He said a submission of Guyana’s claim of the extended continental belt would have to be completed by May next year.
Apart from establishing a single maritime boundary between Guyana and Suriname which differs from the boundaries claimed by each of the parties in their pleadings before the Arbitral Tribunal, the tribunal had found that Suriname “acted unlawfully when it expelled a drilling rig licensed by Guyana from the disputed area” in 2000.
President Bharrat Jagdeo had announced the ruling to the nation on September 20 last year at the same time as his counterpart in Suriname. He had said that Guyana, which initiated the arbitration process to settle once and for all any dispute over the maritime boundary with Suriname, was very pleased with the judgment.
The ruling has given a definitive and permanent maritime boundary with Suriname, which Guyana considers as fair and equitable to both states and allows Guyana’s licensees to resume their petroleum exploration activities in the part of the sea that Guyana has claimed, out to a distance of 200 miles from the coast, in accordance with international law.
