Pinera decrees prompt new maritime limits dispute between Chile and Argentina
Two decrees signed on August 23rd by Chilean President Sebastián Piñera have renewed controversy regarding maritime boundaries between Chile and Argentina, following Chile's issuance of claims allegedly in violation of a 1984 treaty.
Piñera's decrees unilaterally extend Chile’s continental shelf east by more than 30,000 km² (11,600 mi²), to include part of the Atlantic Ocean maritime platform southeast of Cape Horn.
Around 5,500 km² (1,930 mi²) of that claim is disputed by Argentina.
“What Chile is doing is exercising its right and declaring its continental shelf,” Chilean President Sebastián Piñera said.
Argentina's Foreign Ministry responded that Chile intended to seize “a part of the Argentine continental shelf and an extensive area of seabed and ocean, a maritime space that is part of the Common Heritage of Humanity.”
Chile's claim east of the 67º 16' meridian - into Atlantic waters - “clearly does not coincide with the 1984 Peace and Friendship Treaty,” Argentine authorities stated.
Argentina's maritime limits were approved in 2016 by the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) - a ruling ratified by the Argentine Congress in 2020.
“Chile had numerous opportunities at a bilateral and multilateral level to express its disagreement specifically - and, having all the information to do so, chose not to do so,” Argentine Foreign Minister Felipe Solá noted.
Piñera dismissed the Argentine claim as “unenforceable.”
The two countries' foreign ministries have agreed to discuss the dispute however.
Chile and Argentina - then under dictatorships - came close to war in the 1978 over three Beagle Channel islands - granted to Chile by the 1984 treaty in exchange for rescinding Atlantic Ocean claims.
At: https://en.mercopress.com/2021/08/30/new-limits-dispute-arises-between-chile-and-argentina
A map detailing Chile's new claims (lower right) south of Cape Horn.
The blue crescent outlines disputed Atlantic waters resulting from Chilean President Sebastián Piñera's August 27th decree - a claim Argentina contends to be in violation of a 1984 treaty limiting Chilean waters to the Pacific (in exchange for the Beagle Channel islands).
Piñera's right-wing coalition is lagging in most polls ahead of presidential elections this November.
