The Legal and Political Dimensions of the Eastern Mediterranean Crisis: What Is at Stake?

• Author: Erdogan, Ayfer
• Position: ARTICLE

Introduction

The Eastern Mediterranean, which has been a cradle to civilizations and of great geostrategic significance, has witnessed political disputes among the myriad political forces throughout history. The region's geopolitical importance lies in its serving as a crossroads between Asia, Europe, and Africa, being located on critical trade routes connecting the East to the West and connected to the Atlantic Ocean, the Black Sea, and the Red Sea through the Straits of Gibraltar and Dardanelles, and the Suez Channel respectively. (1) Hence, the region has also acted as a basin for constant cultural and economic interactions.

With the successful operation of offshore drilling rigs, political struggles over the seabed have intensified adding to the geostrategic significance of the semi-enclosed seas such as the Eastern Mediterranean. In 2009, Israel discovered three major offshore natural gas fields--Tamar, Dalit, and Leviathan--which are estimated to represent over 200 years' worth of Israel's current natural gas consumption. (2) Since then, the discovery of these vast reserves has sparked interest from other coastal states to explore their boundaries for potential oil and natural gas reserves.

The coastal states' exploration efforts paid off. In 2015, Italy's state-controlled oil and gas company ENI discovered a vast gas field off the Egyptian coast, the largest ever found in the Mediterranean Sea. Zohr field is predicted to become one of the world's largest natural gas finds and ensure Egypt's natural gas demand for decades. (3) In 2018, the Greek Administration of Southern Cyprus (GASC) found Calypso gas field. The increasing discoveries of impressive amounts of natural gas in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin fueled the coastal states' dreams of being energy-independent and the prospects of becoming engaged in the lucrative gas export business.

Driven by these discoveries, Turkey joined the race for hydrocarbon exploration by sending the first seismic vessel, the Barbaros Hayrettin Pasa, and two drilling vessels--Fatih and most recently Yavuz--claiming the right of Turkey and the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC) to the potential resources of the region. (4) Turkey's deployment of research vessels protected by warships of the Turkish Navy has been severely opposed by Greece and the GASC on the ground that the research area fell into their own continental shelf. On the other hand, Turkish officials assert that the areas where hydrocarbon exploration activities are carried out entirely fall into its maritime jurisdiction as the area is a part of the continental shelf that Turkey declared to the United Nations (UN). (5)

As a result of the disputes over maritime borders, the Eastern Mediterranean is facing one of the most intense crises the region has ever witnessed.

The crisis escalated to a point where the three North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies--Greece, Turkey, and France--came to the brink of military confrontation soon after Turkey sent its Oruc Reis survey vessel to the Eastern Mediterranean waters, a move called illegal by Greece. (6) France sent its fighter jets and a naval frigate to increase its military presence siding with Greece in its standoff with Turkey.

From the European standpoint, Turkey's "unilateral" exploration activities in contested waters are "illegal" and breach the sovereignty of the GASC by extending its exclusive economic zones (EEZs). (7) On the other hand, Turkey claims that Greece and the GASC took unilateral steps with regards to the Eastern Mediterranean issue and the GASC shouldn't have the right to auction its surrounding seabed to international energy companies as Turkish Cypriots should be entitled to an equal share of any finds in these waters. (8) Turkey also argues that the proximity of Greek islands to the Turkish coastline necessitates their: that they are being granted limited EEZs.

As Turkey extended its gas exploration mission and sent new navy drills to the region, the EU repeatedly called Ankara to halt its exploration activities off Cyprus and deescalate the crisis. To defuse the ongoing tension, Germany opted to take a constructive approach and mediated talks between Greece and Turkey. As a good-will gesture, in late July, Turkey suspended oil drilling in the Mediterranean to maintain negotiations with Greece. (9) Yet, tensions re-escalated when Greece signed a maritime border deal with Egypt in August.

On the surface, the crisis seems to have stemmed from the contesting claims over maritime zone boundaries and distribution of potential resources in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, the political disputes surrounding the drilling operations of Turkey, Greece, and the GASC and the engagement of third parties manifest that the crisis is not a simple rivalry over energy resources and there are far-reaching implications of the crisis; be it legal, economic, and political. This article first investigates the legal dimensions of the Eastern Mediterranean crisis by referring to maritime border disputes between Greece, Turkey, and the GASC with reference to international law and the case law. Second, it highlights the political dimension of the crisis and seeks to answer why the Eastern Mediterranean has turned into a political playground that goes beyond the borders of the Mediterranean and has drawn in several actors aligning themselves with one of the parties.

Legal Dimensions of the Eastern Mediterranean Crisis

There are two legal areas of dispute with regards to the conflicting claims in the delimitation of maritime zones in the Eastern Mediterranean: (i) the maritime dispute between Turkey and Greece, (ii) the Cyprus issue and the status of the island. The former one concerns the conflicting claims of both sides on the entitlement of islands to maritime zones while delimiting maritime borders and the geographical circumstances of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea which further complicates the border limitation issue. The latter is a result of the Cyprus issue that has remained unresolved until now and the Turkish position that asserts Turkish Cypriots should have equal rights over potential hydrocarbon finds. Other states such as Libya, Egypt, France, and United Arab Emirates are rallying around them according to their political interests, ideological considerations, and relations with the respective governments.

Turkish-Greek Maritime Dispute in the Eastern Mediterranean

According to the international law of the sea, the 1982 UN Conventions on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the 1958 Convention on the Continental Shelf, International Customary Law (ICL), and bilateral and multilateral international treaties are the main sources that are referred to while delineating maritime borders. (10) The UNCLOS is regarded as customary law with binding effects on all states due to its widespread acceptance by the international community.

The 1982 UNCLOS defines the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) as a sea zone that extends up to 200 nautical miles (370 km) from the baseline of the territorial waters (Article 57). The coastal state has sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring and exploiting, conserving, and managing the natural resources, and other activities for the economic exploitation and exploration of the zone, such as the production of energy from the water, currents, and winds (Article 56). (11) Every state is entitled to claim its sovereign rights on its exclusive economic zones.

While both coastal states and islands are entitled to claim their exclusive economic zones, the neighboring coastal states' claims over EEZs can overlap due to the location of some islands very close to another coastal state, as is the case with the Turkish-Greek dispute on maritime boundaries. The resolution of maritime border disputes entails treating each case on the basis of the applicable international law in compliance with principles such as 'equitable solution,' 'respect to geography,' 'non-cut-off effect' (or 'avoiding cut-off effect'), and 'proportionality.'

The Principle of 'Equitable Solution'

Regarding the delimitation of the exclusive economic zone, Article 74(1) and 83(1) of UNCLOS state that delimitation of the EEZ between states with opposite or adjacent coasts should be based on an agreement between the respective coastal states on the basis of the principle of 'equitable solution.' (12) However, the main problem with the delimitation of maritime zones is the high open-endedness and relativity of the principle of equitable solution and the methods used for delimitation. For one thing, what seems like an equitable solution for one state could be a violation of its exclusive rights for the other.

To achieve equitable solution, the most common method employed in maritime border disputes is taking the median line between the two coastal states as the boundary. Article 6(1) of the 1958 Convention on the Continental Shelf states that the boundary of the continental shelf between the two or more states whose coasts are opposite each other is determined by agreement and in the absence of agreement, and unless another boundary line is justified by special circumstances, "the boundary shall be determined by the application of the principle of equidistance or median line from the nearest points of the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea of each state is measured." (13)

On the other hand, when the median line of delimitation is drawn between the two coastal states' mainlands, islands belonging to one state but located on the wrong side of the median line won't be able to generate their own maritime zones. In relation to the delimitation for EEZs between the two countries, the question is whether islands should be given full effect or limited effect while delineating delimitation. In that regard, the status of the islands in the Eastern Mediterranean has been the origin of the dispute between Turkey and Greece. The Turkish...