President of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) Judge Shunji Yanai on Thursday appointed Jean-Pierre Cot as arbitrator on Thursday in the arbitral proceedings instituted for the settlement of the maritime delimitation dispute between Bangladesh and India in the Bay of Bengal. Cot replaces Tullio Treves (Italy), who has chosen to resign as a member of the arbitral tribunal in the proceedings, said an ITLOS press release on Friday. On 3 July 2013, Judge Yanai received a letter from the deputy agent of Bangladesh and Secretary of the Maritime Affairs Unit, Rear Admiral Md. Khurshed Alam (retired), in which he asked the President to appoint a replacement for Treves.
Pursuant to article 3, subparagraph (f), of Annex VII to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a vacancy in the arbitral tribunal should be filled “in the manner prescribed for the initial appointment”. The President is therefore required to make the appointment to fill the vacant seat within a period of 30 days from receipt of the request and in consultations with the parties, as prescribed in article 3, subparagraph (e), of Annex VII to the Convention.
Cot was appointed following consultations that took place on 18 July between the President of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the two parties to the dispute.
The full composition of the five-member Annex VII arbitral tribunal is now as follows: Rüdiger Wolfrum, president (Germany), Thomas A. Mensah (Ghana), Pemmaraju Sreenivasa Rao (India), Ivan Shearer (Australia) and Jean-Pierre Cot (France).
-With The Independent input
