Portugal takes Timor campaign to world court
Portugal takes Timor campaign to world court
THE HAGUE (Agencies): Portugal took its campaign on East Timor to the International Court of Justice, again resorting to antique rhetoric to conceal its own past atrocities in its former colony.
The only difference is that this time the target is Australia, not Indonesia.
On Monday, the court opened the hearing of a lawsuit filed by Portugal against Australia for its signing of an agreement with Indonesia to jointly explore for oil in the Timor Sea off East Timor.
Portuguese lawyer Jose Manuel Servulo Correia said in his opening statements that by signing the Timor Gap treaty with Indonesia in 1989, Australia was violating East Timor's right of self determination.
Indonesia is not involved in the hearing as it does not recognize the jurisdiction of the court. Portugal and Australia have both accepted the UN court's compulsory jurisdiction.
Portugal is arguing that Australia had no right to sign the treaty because the United Nations still recognizes Portugal and not Indonesia as the administrative authority in East Timor.
Australia has called Portugal's case "cynically misdirected" and says Lisbon's real dispute is with Jakarta.
"The case that Portugal has brought against us is one which should have been brought against Indonesia," said Christopher Lamb, legal adviser at Australia's Foreign Affairs Department.
Lamb, who was briefing reporters after Portugal's opening statements, said Lisbon's lawyers had failed to present convincing legal arguments to the court.
"We're here to deal with a court case about points of international law. We're not out on a high school debating society expedition talking about the morals of the issue."
"They are wrong in law and wrong in procedure," he said. "As far as we are concerned being here is a waste of time and money."
Australia is due to present its defense to the court next Monday at the start of the second week of hearings.
Australia's case is based on the idea that having been subject to colonial rule by Portugal prior to the integration with Indonesia, East Timor has yet to "conduct an act of self- determination", Lamb said.
Therefore, Indonesian sovereignty over the area is not necessarily illegal, regardless of the way in which it was established.
Australia is one of the few Western countries to recognize Indonesia's sovereignty over East Timor.
Portugal abandoned the territory in 1975, leaving a bloody civil war in its wake. In the following year, the majority of East Timor tribal leaders declared their intention to become part of Indonesia.
Indonesia and Portugal are currently negotiating to settle the sovereignty issue through the United Nations.
Recent oil finds in Timor Gap -- a 23,550 square mile (61,000 square kilometer) stretch of sea between East Timor and Australia -- have given an edge to the dispute by reviving initial hopes that it may contain up to one billion barrels of oil.
Servulo Correia acknowledged that Portugal's dispute with Australia was connected to its dispute with Indonesia, but said the two issues were distinct and that the court was only being asked to rule on the row over the oil treaty.
Australia could not dodge international responsibility by hiding behind Indonesia, he said.
He said that by concluding the treaty Australia had considered only its own interests and those of Indonesia, adding that East Timor had been treated as an "inconvenient nonentity".
The 1989 Timor Gap treaty settled a dispute between Jakarta and Canberra over rights to exploit the resources of an area not covered by previous agreements between them.
Under the agreement, the area was divided into three zones: the northern sector for Indonesia, the south for Australia and a central zone in which they cooperate.
Recent discoveries have led analysts to suggest this field could be one of the richest in the world.