Santiago Chile Map

Chile moves forward in maritime dispute with Peru - Santiago Times

After three and a half years in the preliminary private document phase, the proceedings will advance to a public oral phase where judicial teams and representatives from Chile and Peru – Alberto van Klaveren and Allan Wagner, respectively - will speak. It is expected that the oral phase will begin in early 2012 and a ruling will be made in mid 2013. Peru argues the maritime border between the two countries should follow the downward curve of the land border, rather than the current configuration, which stretches out from the coast along longitudinal lines. Their interpretation of the maritime border area would give Peru control of an additional 37,900 square kilometers (23,550 square miles) of the Pacific Ocean. The claim is backed by 99 percent of Peruvians, according to Peruvian newspaper El Comercio. Chile argues that the horizontal maritime border was established in treaties in 1952 and 1954. Chile sees these agreements as binding treaties, which cannot be broken under international law. Peru’s government recognizes the agreements, but rejects their status as binding border treaties, and claims they are agreements for the protection and exploitation of maritime resources, such as fish. According to national media in Chile, government authorities believe Peru complied with Ecuador’s proposal so that Ecuador would not support Chile before The Hague. In previous months, the President of Ecuador had publicly called on his Peruvian counterpart to accept their borders map, or else Ecuador would be “obliged” to take them to court. About the writer Benjamin Schneider

Benjamin recently graduated from Tufts University with a degree in Spanish and international relations with a focus on Latin America. Bitten early by the travel bug, he’s spent time in China, Israel, Spain, and El Salvador, as well as Chile, where he spent his junior year of college studying at the Universidad de Chile. He began working with the Santiago Times while in Chile and now contributes from abroad as a “distance” writer with an additional year of experience under his belt.

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