Who said on 13th October 2010 that it is impossible for formal cooperation to take place between the law enforcement agencies of Gibraltar and Spain because they (Spain) does not recognise our jurisdiction?
It was the GSLP/Liberals when in opposition.
At the time of the GSD government, there had been an incident - one of many - with the Spanish Guardia Civil physically preventing the Royal Gibraltar Police from taking a suspect into custody inside our territorial waters which showed that, far from respecting our jurisdiction, the agencies of the Spanish state were undermining it.
Just a few days ago another Spanish enforcement agency, the customs SVA (Servicio de Vigilancia Aduanera) was involved in a similar incident within British territorial waters, when they also physically prevented the RGP from arresting a suspect Rib.
The underlying Spanish concept is that Gibraltar does not have any territorial sea because the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 does not say so.
However, what determines our territorial waters is not Utrecht but the 1958 Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, which is largely a codification of customary international law.
EXTENDS
The Convention states: "The sovereignty of a State extends beyond its land territory and its internal waters to a belt of sea adjacent to its coast, described as the territorial sea."
Says a professor emeritus of international law: "There is nothing in the Treaty of Utrecht which would make this general provision of international law inapplicable to Gibraltar."
He adds that there appears to be considerably more merit in, and support in both customary and conventional international law, for the British position than in that urged by Spain.
Besides, there are other land cessions - including in the Treaty of Utrecht - were there is no mention of territorial waters, yet it has not occurred to anyone to challenge whether or not the cession included the territorial sea.
This is because in many treaties in the 18th century, and to date, it is not the norm for there to be any mention of territorial waters in connection with a land cession where a sea coast is involved.
NO BASIS
During the first Anglo-Spanish talks over Gibraltar, held in 1966, Britain said that there is no basis for the contention held by Spain that the limits of the territorial waters of Gibraltar are fixed in Article 10 of the treaty of Utrecht and are confined to the waters of the port.
Britain added: "The fact that only the port of Gibraltar was specifically ceded to Britain under the treaty, without any mention of a cession of territorial waters, is irrelevant, since it has long been the position that a cession of territory automatically carries the cession of the appurtenant territorial waters unless the contrary is specifically stated."
In fact, the British Government has long held that "it is almost impossible to conceive of a grant of rights in wider terms," in respect of the terms of Article 10 of the Treaty of Utrecht as applying to Gibraltar.
Britain has been administering the waters surrounding Gibraltar for more than 300 years, which provides a prescriptive right to those waters quite apart from the fact that such waters have always been regarded by Britain as coming under British sovereign jurisdiction.
The UN Convention of the Seas entitles Britain of sovereignty of a territorial sea by automatic virtue of sovereignty of the land territory.
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| South View |
Under the UN Convention of the Seas, whereas Britain has only claimed a 3-mile limit in respect of Gibraltar, a 12-mile limit has become almost universally accepted since the late 20th century.
Britain has always referred to a median line to demarcate the maritime boundary between Gibraltar and Spain as regards the bay, with the 3-mile limit of British Gibraltar territorial waters circling the rest of the Rock.
It was in October 1966 when Britain offered to submit the legal aspects of the Spanish claim, including territorial waters, to the International Court of Justice, but Spain never took up the offer.
During that period and beyond the closed frontier days, Spain did not make the kind of incursions that have become commonplace nowadays.
Then, the Spanish Government respected the territorial waters demarcations, even when imposing an air ban; now, her attitude is more active and aggressive, often repeating that, according to them, the waters around the Rock are Spanish as Gibraltar has no territorial sea.
That is why Gibraltar has to be specially careful in not entering into any agreement that could emasculate our rights over the waters around the Rock.
by Joe Garcia Gibraltar 'Panorama'
