កម្ពុជា និងថៃ ចាប់ផ្តើមការផ្សះផ្សាដោយបង្ខំក្នុងជម្លោះព្រំដែនសមុទ្រ

 The process, convened under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, follows Thailand’s revocation of a 2001 MoU governing bilateral maritime talks.

Cambodia and Thailand began compulsory conciliation proceedings in Singapore yesterday, aimed at resolving a long-running maritime dispute.

The three-day session marks the opening of a process conducted under Article 298 and Annex V of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which is intended to resolve the two nations’ overlapping claims in the Gulf of Thailand.

After a closed-door session yesterday that was chaired by Katrina Cooper, the head of the Conciliation Commission, a public session took place today in which the Cambodian and Thai foreign ministers delivered opening statements laying out their governments’ respective positions.

Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn told the Commission that his government’s objective was “to achieve a resolution that serves the peoples of both nations and contributes to peace, cooperation and shared prosperity in the region.”

“A peaceful resolution is in the shared interests of both countries and will contribute to peace and stability in the region,” he said. “It will protect sovereignty, strengthen confidence, unlock energy resources, support development, and create new job opportunities not only for now, but also for the future generations of the Cambodian and Thai peoples.”

In his statement, Thailand’s Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkaew said that Thailand “enters this conciliation in good faith, fully mindful of the provisions of UNCLOS.” He added that his government “stands ready to engage in this process constructively, with the aim of achieving, with the Commission’s assistance, a negotiated and equitable solution.”

The maritime dispute ‌between Cambodia and Thailand relates to a 26,000-square-kilometer area in the Gulf of Thailand, known as the Overlapping Claims Area (OCA). The OCA is estimated to hold abundant reserves of oil and natural gas, the exploitation of which has become more pressing due to the current global oil supply crisis.

Maritime tensions between Phnom Penh and Bangkok have increased in parallel with the intensification of the dispute over the Thailand-Cambodia land border, which flared into conflict twice last year – for five days in July and then for nearly three weeks in December – killing nearly 150 people and displacing around a million on both sides of the border.

Cambodia initiated the UNCLOS process in June, shortly after Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s government unilaterally cancelled a 2001 agreement with Cambodia that governed joint offshore energy exploration and the demarcation of maritime boundaries in the OCA. Anutin denied that the cancelation had anything to do with the tensions over the land border, instead citing the lack of progress made under the agreement.

In his statement yesterday, Prak Sokhonn said that after the cancelation of the MoU, Cambodia chose to initiate compulsory conciliation in order to “find a peaceful pathway forward in accordance with international law.” He added that Phnom Penh “sees this conciliation process as a means to rebuild trust, not as a form of escalation.”

⁠Sihasak was in general more combative, accusing Cambodia of taking refuge behind international law, while “repeatedly vilif[ying] Thailand through false narratives, distortion of facts, and unfounded accusations.” He added that Thailand had chosen to cancel the 2001 MoU because it “had produced no concrete progress” and that the government “chose to give negotiations a fresh start.” Sihasak also claimed that Thailand had offered direct bilateral talks over the maritime boundary, and expressed disappointment that Cambodia chose to initiate compulsory conciliation. “Thailand has consistently believed that differences between neighbors should be addressed through dialogue,” he said.

The Thai foreign minister also stated that the conciliation proceedings concerned “only maritime boundary delimitation between Thailand and Cambodia in the Gulf of Thailand” and would not address the island of Koh Kut, part of which was claimed by Cambodia in a continental shelf claim submitted in 1972.

Thai nationalist fears over Koh Kut derailed attempts by a previous Thai government to negotiate with Cambodia a resolution of the OCA in late 2024 and early 2025. This created tensions that quickly snowballed into armed clashes on the land border. The potential loss of Koh Kut is also why Thai nationalist lobby groups have long pushed for the cancellation of the 2001 MoU.

According to Annex V of UNCLOS, compulsory conciliation is a process in which a panel of independent experts – known as conciliators – examines a dispute and helps states parties reach an amicable settlement. Its findings are not legally binding on either party, but the process offers a way of discussing complex and sensitive disputes away from the domestic political hothouse.

The mechanism has only ever been invoked once before, in 2016, when Timor-Leste opted to refer its maritime dispute with Australia to compulsory conciliation. In that instance, Australia accepted conciliation and the five conciliators were able to offer a compromise that was ultimately accepted by both parties.

It is too soon to determine whether the UNCLOS process will allow Cambodia and Thailand to reach a similarly felicitous arrangement. The maritime dispute stems from divergent interpretations of a land border treaty signed between Siam and French Indochina in 1907. This did not delineate the maritime border but provided a point on land from which both countries have charted their claims.

In principle, the maritime dispute should be a lot easier to resolve than the disagreements over the land border. The latter involves more intricate questions of demarcation undertaken by French colonial cartographers, as well as the presence of Angkorian temple ruins that are charged with cultural and political significance, particularly for the Cambodian side.

However, as the tone of Sihasak’s address suggests, last year’s armed clashes have poisoned relations between Bangkok and Phnom Penh to such an extent that any agreement between the two sides, even one that opens the way to mutual exploitation of rich undersea resources, will be challenging.

The UNCLOS process probably offers the best means of reaching a resolution, but any recommendations handed down by the Conciliation Commission will still need to be “sold” to publics that are touchy about sovereignty and liable to pounce at the merest hint of compromise. This is particularly the case in Thailand. Indeed, Thai nationalist agitation is the primary reason that the two nations made so little progress in negotiating maritime border issues under the 2001 MoU.

thediplomat