Custody Battles Over the Caspian Sea

Marc Kilgour said "[it is a] sort of a puzzle box that got opened when the Soviet Union collapsed" (Oleson, 2013, para. 21). Kilgour was talking about the Caspian Sea, or more specifically he was talking about the demarcation, oil, and navigation rights of the Caspian. The ownership of the Caspian Sea and its resources is an issue for all the countries that share its coastlines. In fact, it has been an issue for hundreds of years, but the people involved have been trying to work it out. There have been a number of reasons however that this has always been a hard issue to solve.

History

Pre-twentieth century
In the early nineteenth century, two empires fought wars over the Caspian Sea. The Russian empire and the Persian Empire's shared boundary were agreed on in 1813 by the Gulustan treaty and again in 1828 by the Turkmenchay treaty. The Turkmenchay treaty forbid Persia from keeping military and any naval ships in the sea, but allowed its merchant ships to roam freely. Neither gave any sort of boundary line within the sea (Karbuz, 2010, para. 4).
Soviet Russia
From 1917 to 1991, two countries were in control of the Caspian Sea (Karbuz, 2010, para. 2). This worked because the Soviet Union controlled every country bordering the sea except for Iran (Find out the List of USSR Countries, 2014, paras. 7, 11, 17, 20). When much of Europe was controlled by the Soviet Union, the Caspian Sea was divided by a number of Soviet-Iranian treaties. The major of which was the Treaty of Friendship in 1921. This treaty allowed Iran to keep a Navy, navigate, and fishing rights of the Caspian. Both countries agreed that it was both of their responsibilities to keep the sea secure, and under no circumstances should there be foreign vessels in the sea.
Later in 1935 with the treaty of Establishment, Commerce, and Navigation, the Soviet Union and Iran were allowed to fish up to ten miles from their borders. It stressed the paraphrased "no foreigners allowed" rule even more by saying that they could not even be crew members on ships in the Caspian Sea, now called the Soviet and Iranian Sea. In 1954 the boundary line between the two nations for the land around the Soviet and Iranian Sea which was called the Astra-Hasankuli line (Karbuz, 2014, paras. 5-8).
In the 1970s the USSR divided everything north of the Astra Hasankuli line into the regional sectors of Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. They did this using the median line principle, which is done by drawing a line from the country's borders to the center of the sea. Doing this allowed each state to mine within its region. It did not assign custody to any of the states. All resources belonged first and foremost to the Soviet Government (Karbuz, 2014, paras. 5-8).
1991 to Present
With the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the number of countries surrounding the inland sea increased from two countries to five. This left uncertainty as to its governing leading to the issue that affects the countries today today. Originally these new countries respected the treaties between the Soviet Union and Iran (Karbuz, 2014, para. 9), but the writing was on the wall that there would be problems. It was during this time period that the first debates over whether the Caspian was a lake or a sea (Moors, 2016, pp. 1-2). In fact in the Minsk Declaration and the Alma-Ata Declaration the new countries said they would follow in principle the truth in the treaties signed by the former USSR.
Still the debate on how accurate and useful the agreements were continued. In 1992, a group of officials from each country involved in the discussion for the legal status of the Caspian Sea met to come to an agreement on the demarcation for the sea. In 2002 the first Summit of Caspian Sea Heads of State met and figured out nothing. They discussed demarcation, legal status, and legal regime. These negotiations went on for another two decades. The second Summit met in 2007 made no progress, but it did end in a mutual agreement. They said that the countries would not make any attempts to use the resources the sea provides, and expand economic cooperation (Karbuz, 2014, paras. 10-13).
Countries, had taken it into their own hands, and they made agreements to delineate the sea. In 1993 Turkmenistan the country declared a twelve mile coastal zone on the Caspian; this lined up nicely with the UN convention's rules on the Law of the Sea in 1982. Azerbaijan, however, declared a part of the sea as its national territory in its constitution, which was rejected by Russia. In 1996 Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan signed the first two sided agreement dividing the Caspian Sea into sectors. Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan signed a similar agreement in 1997. Russia signed two agreements delineating the Caspian Sea with Kazakhstan in1998 and with Azerbaijan in 2001. In 2003 a Russian-Kazakh-Azerbaijani agreement was made over the northern 64 percent of the seabed; 18 percent went to Azerbaijan, 19 percent went to Russia, and 27 percent went to Kazakhstan. They based these percentages on the length of their coastlines. Iran persisted that older agreements were still in effect until a multilateral agreement was met between all 5 countries (Karbuz, 2014, paras. 11-13).

Reasons to Continue

The legal status of the Caspian Sea has been virtually at a standstill since the breakup of the Soviet Union because the main question to be answered asks whether or not the water body happens to be a sea or a lake (Moors, 2016, p. 1) which can be compared to one of the tasks of Hercules. There are some things no one can deny. The first appears to be that the landlocked Caspian likes to be a salt-water water body that has no natural outflow except evaporation. It is 750 miles long and 200 miles wide which gives it a surface area of 149,200 square miles. another being, the sea has a number of rivers that flow into it. The major of which are: Volga, Ural, and Terek. Four fifths of the world's caviar comes from the Caspian Sea, which means sturgeon nest in it commonly (Encyclopedia, 2016, paras. 1-2). The English dictionary defines a sea as "a great body of salt water that covers much of the earth." It defines a lake as "a considerable inland body of standing water" (Fowler, 1983, pp. 314, 519).
Lake or Sea
Both of these definitions fit for the Caspian Sea, but as a lake has a more broad definition, it seems it would fit more nicely there. As was previously stated, the Caspian holds salty water. While the salinity of the Caspian makes it an excellent candidate to be a sea, a lake can be saline as all that seems to be necessary for something to be a lake would be that it is inland. Lakes are usually fresh water because they flow into another water body, namely a sea or an ocean. This means that they carry most of the minerals they acquired from eroding the rocks along river floors into another major water body including salts (Shulze, 2014). Lakes though can be endorheic, or salty, if they have no natural outlet. Some of these lakes include: Lake Van in Turkey, which used to have a natural outlet but because of lava flows no longer does, the Great Salt Lakes in Utah, the Qinghai Lake in China, Lake Urmia in Iran, and Lake Turkana in Kenya . These lakes are listed not only because they are major lakes, but because they are all called a lake in the name. The other problem of whether or not it will be a lake would be its size. The next largest lake, Lake Superior, is four and a half times smaller than the Caspian Sea (Lindquist, 2011, paras. 1-10). If it results as being a lake it would be divided evenly by coastline and a mid-line; this happens to be the opinion of Iran (Moors, 2016, p.2). So then the Caspian should be a lake. Great! What could possibly be the problem?
The problem stands that it could also be a sea. Having already established that it is endorheic, the only other piece to the definition that it has to fill is that it covers much of the earth. Much happens to be a terribly subjective term, so how big does a sea have to be? The Gulf of California, also called the Sea of Cortes, is the smallest sea in the world with a surface area of 62 thousand square miles (Gulf of California, 2008, para. 2). This is 87.2 thousand square miles less than the Caspian Sea therefore it fits the description for a sea. The fact that it is inland is not a problem either because there are numerous seas that are inland including: the Aral Sea and Tonle Sap (Largest Inland Lakes and Seas, n.d., paras. 7, 9). If the Caspian is deemed a sea, then it must follow the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS. Under this it states that the countries have 12 miles from their shorelines as territorial, and the rest is open to use by all. Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan already have adopted this method in the northern region (Moors, 2016, p.2).
Oil
Another reason that the issue continues is that each country wants the oil and gas rights. The oil and gas in and around the Caspian is about 4 percent of the world's total oil reserves (Oleson, 2013, para. 20) and 25 percent of natural gas reserves (Who Owns the Oil in the Caspian Sea, 2016, para. 6). This is according to a Congressional Research Service report in 2006 based on data that comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (Oleson, 2013, para. 19). Since 2003, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have had a 70 percent increase in oil production because they were granted increased oil exploration rights (Who Owns the Oil in the Caspian Sea, 2016, para. 3). Therefore those who control the Caspian, control a percentage of the oil and gas reserves. With this information it is easy to see why all five countries want control of the most of the sea.

Laws

Solutions
There have been a number of laws that have tried to settle the dispute. In 2014 the Caspian Summit met in Astrakhan, Russia. There the Caspian State's leaders agreed that each country's land would extend 15 nautical miles from the shoreline for mineral exploration, extraction, and production. There would be an additional 10 nautical miles on top of the 15 for fishing rights. Still there have been a number of other agreements that have not been in line with the 2014 agreement of the Caspian Sea. In 2015 Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan made a bilateral agreement on maritime borders. Russia proposed a theory called "Common Waters, Divided Bottom" that means that anyone could sail along a majority of the sea; however, the natural gas bed would be divided into five parts (Coffey, 2016, para. 11).
There has been a temporary solution to the problem put into place over the ownership of oil rights along the sea floor of the Caspian. They had divided the seafloor five ways so that the exploration and extraction of oil and natural gas that lies under the water that holds its own treasures. However there are several oil fields that lie on the border lines of this division. These oil fields have led to disagreements, disputes, and in some cases violence (Who Owns the Oil in the Caspian Sea, 2016, paras. 4-6) like the Mason Dixon line caused disputes between the Union and Confederacy.

Status

Turkmenistan is rich in natural gas, but the only way to get it to Europe is through the Caspian Sea, or through Iran (Find out the List of USSR Countries, 2014, para. 20). Because of problems in Iran the only plausible route is the Caspian. Because of this Turkmenistan is divided on the issue of whether the Caspian is a sea or a lake though when the country has to take a side it chooses to say that the Caspian is a lake because UNCLOS, or United Nations Convention on the Law Of the Sea, guarantees no more than 12 percent of the sea goes to any one nation, but if it is a lake they are granted twenty percent. Turkmenistan has also been beginning to lay claims to parts of the Azeri-Chyrag-Guneshli network of fields under Azerbaijani protection. Contesting with Azerbaijan led to naval vessel firing on a research ship in 2001(Moors, 2016, pp. 2-3).
Stance of Countries
The borders of some of the countries are clearly defined, while others are far from it. Russia's sector is clearly defined. Kazakhstan is not completely defined however it is not disputed too much. Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Iran are constantly debating between themselves how the sea should be divided. On top of that Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have no external waterway access for trading. The major river that could be used is the Volga in Russia, but it is unclear the conditions under which those can be used (Encyclopedia, 2013, 53).
Each country takes a different stance on how the sea should be delineated. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan want to call the Caspian a sea because under those pretenses the two countries stand to gain the most by that delineation (Coffey, 2016, para. 8). Iran wants one fifth of the sea and thus sees the only way to come to a fair treaty is to have a five way treaty, and thus does not want acknowledge any bilateral or trilateral agreements. Turkmenistan, like Hamlet, cannot decide what it wants although hopefully unlike in Shakespeare's play everyone will not have to die because of that lack of decisiveness (Caspian Sea, 2013, para. 53).
Future
The future of the Caspian Sea is a difficult thing to predict. Because there have been innumerous things that have tried to solve the problem, it may be solved in a couple of years without a problem. On the other hand, because it is such a difficult issue to solve it could spiral out of control into a number of problems. The Caspian Sea is a major oil and gas transportation area for countries bringing oil and natural gas from central Asia into Europe. Because of this, armed conflict is a growing possibility until an agreement is reached. Already we have seen Iranian and Turkmen naval vessels attacking both themselves and Azerbaijani oil exploration vessels. On top of this the countries have been building larger and larger navies. Because several countries, and even continents, are involved, this is an issue that, if not dealt with could potentially cause the third world war (Coffey, 2015, paras. 19-22).

Conclusion

Although the issue has been around for hundreds of years, it is still something that is a problem for the Caspian Sea region. A number of things have been done to diminish the severity of the issue however for a there have been a number of reasons that it continues to be a difficult issue to solve. Because of these reasons, it is entirely unclear whether the issue has improved or gotten worse, and therefore what it will do in the future. There have been laws, however, to try to remedy the problem. I leave you with a quote from Ally Carter's 2013 book, "World War Three would start with a tanker blowing up on the Iranian coast of the Caspian Sea and a bridge going out in Azerbaijan" (p. 26).

References

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