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Australia's Timor Sea Intrigue

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Australia's Timor Sea Intrigue Oil under Troubled Water: Australia’s Timor Sea Intrigue Bernard Collaery (Melbourne University Press, 2020, xxi + 466pp) Australia’s relationship with Timor-Leste has been through numerous highs and lows. Some are well known and understood, such as the events of 1975 leading up to the Indonesian intervention in Portuguese East Timor. Likewise, the 1999 Australian military intervention in East Timor immediately following the United Nations sponsored ballot on the future of the territory. A continuous thread running through the relationship has been the shared interest in the Timor Sea, the need for the settlement of maritime boundaries, and the oil and gas reserves in the area. The international law dimensions of that relationship are numerous and include multiple dimensions ranging from treaties and other international instruments between Australia and Indonesia, the United Nations and Timor-Leste concerning the Timor Sea, to litigation before the International Court of Justice and arbitral tribunals arising from those treaties. Those international law issues and associated disputes have, to a degree, been brought to an end by a conciliation process under the framework of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea1 (‘LOSC’), which resulted in the 2018 Treaty between Australia and the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste Establishing Their Maritime Boundaries in the Timor Sea2 (‘2018 Timor Sea Treaty’) between Australia and Timor-Leste. However, while the 2018 Timor Sea Treaty is a landmark in the bilateral relationship and is some- thing of a win-win for both countries,3 the history leading to its negotiation is troubled and contested. Bernard Collaery is a prominent Canberran, law graduate from the University of Sydney where Julius Stone was one of his lecturers, former member of the Australian Capital Territory (‘ACT’) Legislative Assembly, for- mer ACT Attorney-General and legal advisor to the East Timorese for over 30 years both prior to and after their 2002 independence. Collaery is also the 1 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, opened for signature 10 December 1982, 1833 UNTS 397 (entered into force 16 November 1994) (‘LOSC’). 2 Opened for signature 6 March 2018, [2019] ATS 16 (entered into force 30 August 2019) (‘2018 Timor Sea Treaty’). 3 See, eg, ‘Timor Sea Treaty Agora’ (2018) 36 Australian Year Book of International Law 23–72. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/26660229_03801018 Book Reviews 345 subject of proceedings in the ACT courts arising out of his relationship with a client, known only as Witness K, which directly relate to certain allegations over Australia’s conduct during the negotiation of the Treaty between Australia and the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea4 (‘CMATS’) in 2004.5 While this matter is not the subject of discussion in this book, it is alluded to, and provides additional context to the matters Collaery writes about. Oil Under Troubled Waters is a personal account by Collaery of his legal journey with the East Timorese. While the reader is informed by Collaery’s personal recollections, the work is much more than just a series of recollec- tions. Collaery has written a work that documents Australia’s engagement with the international world order starting with HV Evatt at the San Francisco Conference in 1945, and the aspirations Australia had for a United Nations founded on respect for international law. With that background, the reader is taken to the early development of the modern law of the sea, notably the First United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea in 1958, and into the 1960s when Australia gained an initial appreciation of the potential significance of the mineral resources of the Timor Sea continental shelf. This was the gen- esis for Australia’s efforts to negotiate the seabed boundaries in the Timor Sea first with Indonesia and then with Portugal. While Indonesia was willing to reach an agreement, Portugal was not, resulting in the so-called ‘Timor Gap’ in Australia’s maritime boundaries in the Timor and Arafura Seas to the south of Timor. The Whitlam government’s dealings with Indonesia in 1974–75 are assessed unfavourably but are not dwelt upon given the author was not per- sonally engaged in those matters. Likewise, the 1989 Treaty between Australia and the Republic of Indonesia on the Zone of Cooperation in an Area between the Indonesian Province of East Timor and Northern Australia6 (‘1989 Timor Gap Treaty’) and subsequent proceedings brought by Portugal in the International Court of Justice7 are only briefly assessed. 4 Opened for signature 12 January 2006, [2007] ATS 12 (entered into force 23 February 2007) (‘CMATS’). 5 Mong Palatino, ‘East Timor-Australia Spying Scandal’, The Diplomat (online, 16 December 2013) <https://thediplomat.com/2013/12/east-timor-australia-spying-scandal/>; Christopher Knaus, ‘Witness K and the “Outrageous” Spy Scandal that Failed to Shame Australia’, The Guardian (online, 10 August 2019) <https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/ aug/10/witness-k-and-the-outrageous-spy-scandal-that-failed-to-shame-australia>. 6 Opened for signature 11 December 1989, [1991] ATS 9 (entered into force 9 February 1991) (‘1989 Timor Gap Treaty’). 7 Case Concerning East Timor (Portugal v Australia) [1995] ICJ Rep 90..
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