PHNOM PENH: Now that Cambodia and Thailand have each selected two conciliators for the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) compulsory reconciliation process, the two sides have 30 days to agree on a fifth member, who will chair the body.
The five members will oversee the reconciliation process of the Overlapping Claims Area (OCA). The overlapping maritime area is believed to hold energy assets worth as much as US$300 billion.
While the appointment has not officially confirmed, local media outlet Fresh News cited unofficial sources who confirmed that Danish diplomat Peter Taksoe-Jensen and French international law expert Professor Jean-Marc Thouvenin were selected as the kingdom’s conciliators.
Following a June 16 cabinet meeting, Thai foreign minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow announced that maritime law specialists, Germany’s Rudiger Wolfrum and South Africa’s Albert Hoffman, had been selected.
The current process dispute follows Thailand’s May 5 scrapping of the 25-year-old “Memorandum of Understanding between the Royal Thai Government and the Royal Government of Cambodia regarding the Area of their Overlapping Maritime Claims to the Continental Shelf”, known as the 2001 MoU.
According to Cambodian officials, the Thai action forced Cambodia to announce that it would initiate the UN-backed compulsory conciliation process under the Unclos. The announcement was made on June 2.
Here, The Post takes a closer look at the representatives of both Cambodia and Thailand.
Cambodia
Peter Taksoe-Jensen is a Danish diplomat who currently serves as ambassador to Italy, Malta and San Marino, having previously held the role in Japan, India and the US.
From 20216 to 2018, he was chair of the Conciliation Committee in the Maritime Boundary Case between Australia and Timor-Leste appointed by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in Hague.
The case saw a historic win for underdog Timor-Leste, in the first-ever compulsory conciliation initiated under Unclos, leading both nations to sign the Treaty on the Timor Sea Maritime Boundary, at the UN Headquarters in New York in March 2018.
Cambodia is familiar to Taksoe-Jensen, who served as UN assistant secretary-general for legal affairs between 2008 and 2009 at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.
Jean-Marc Thouvenin has a long record of involvement in international cases. He is currently a professor of international law at Université Paris Nanterre and secretary-general of The Hague Academy of International Law.
Thouvenin has more than thirty years of experience advising and representing states before international courts and tribunals. He has assisted governments from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Europe in major cases involving public international law and international dispute settlements.
He has expertise in a wide range of fields, notably the law of the sea, climate change, treaty interpretation and international customary law, international sanctions and reparations.
Since 2017, he has notably served as counsel and advocate for Ukraine in its litigation against Russia.
Thouvenin regularly pleads before the principal international courts and tribunals, including the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Thailand
Rudiger Wolfrum is a legal scholar who led the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (1993–2012) and served as a Judge at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) (1996–2017), including a term as president.
His resume highlights extensive roles in international dispute settlement as an arbitrator for the PCA, ICSID and CAS, alongside providing constitutional counsel to governments in transitioning nations.
Interestingly, he worked alongside Denmark’s Taksoe-Jensen to represent Timor-Leste in the first ever Unclos compulsary conciliation case.
Albert J. Hoffmann has served as an independent judge on the International Law of the Sea Tribunal since 2005, and was the tribunal’s president from 2020 to 2023.
He has been involved in numerous high-level international maritime disputes, ranging from marine environmental protection to fishing rights and territorial boundaries.
Foreign minister Prak Sokhonn, in a recent Asia Times op-ed, explained that the Unclos mechanism will give all countries to see “effective international law in action” and to offer support to peaceful dispute resolution under the auspices of the UN “when the multilateral rules-based order is under pressure”.
He described it as a chance for the Asean community to draw on the region’s rich history of mutual support, as well as the bloc’s well-deserved reputation as a role model on the international stage.
“It is a chance for Thailand and Cambodia – neighbours with a history together stretching back centuries – to step away from confrontation and choose peace,” he said. - The Phnom Penh Post/ANN
