Kazakhstan ratifies Convention on Legal Status of Caspian Sea
The text of the Law is to be published in the press.
It is to be recalled that on 12th August 2018, the presidents of Kazakhstan, Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea during the Fifth Caspian Summit hosted by Aktau.
"I would like to congratulate all of you on the signing of the Convention. Today, my counterparts and I summarized the work on the Caspian Sea. We also have signed a series of agreements," President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev said.
The Convention reflects all the legal aspects of the Caspian Littoral States' relations in the Caspian Sea.
According to the Convention, the Caspian Sea will have a special legal status. The provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982, as well as the principles applied to transboundary lakes, are not applicable to the Caspian Sea. Only the seabed shall be delineated into sectors, as per sea principles. The sovereignty rights to the water columns shall be established on the basis of the principle that it is a lake.
Thus, all five littoral states have reached a consolidated approach as to navigation, sub-sea pipelines, and other key issues. The creation of a reliable legal framework will expand the cooperation of all the five littoral states: Kazakhstan, Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan.