The Barbados/Trinidad and Tobago Arbitration Award of 2006

FOREWORD This volume contains the Award of the Arbitral Tribunal established under Annex VII of the 1982 United Nations Convention of the Law of Sea ("UNCLOS," "the Convention") in the matter between Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago concerning the delimitation of the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf in the Caribbean Sea region that separates the two island nations. This Award, delivered on April 11, 2006, was the first ever rendered in a maritime delimitation submitted to arbitration pursuant to the dispute settlement provisions found in Part XV of UNCLOS. The Convention, which came into force on November 16, 1994, was concluded to provide a regulatory framework for the use of the world's seas and oceans, to ensure the conservation and eq- table usage of resources and the marine environment, and to ensure the prot- tion and conservation of the living resources of the sea. The Convention provides, in effect, for a system of compulsory recourse to arbitration in the event of d- pute between two signatory States. Ad hoc arbitration under Annex VII of UNCLOS is the default means of dispute settlement if a State has not expressed any preference for the alternative means of dispute resolution available under Article 287 of the Convention, and has not made any reservation or optional exceptions pursuant to Article 298. This arbitration was initiated in February 2004 by Barbados, after three - cades of unsuccessful attempts by the two States to agree on the issues involved.