Submission from Carlos Miranda, Count
of Casa Miranda, Ambassador of Spain
According to the transcript of evidence before
the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons on 5 March,
the Chief Minister of the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar,
Peter Caruana, would have stated that the position that Spain
holds in relation to the sovereignty or jurisdiction of the waters
surrounding the Rock of Gibraltar and its isthmus "...
is unsustainable because there is a 1952 (sic) UN convention on
territorial waters which gives every spot in the planet the treaty
right to territorial waters ... " and he added that Spain
had subscribed this UN Convention having made no reservation in
relation to the question of Gibraltar, "so international
law makes Spain denial of territorial waters completely unsustainable
in law".
On behalf of my Government, I wish to submit
to you, as Chairman of the Committee of the British Parliament
which is carrying out an inquiry on the exercise by the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office of its responsibilities in relation to
the Overseas Territories, the position of the Kingdom of Spain
on this issue, which I believe hasn't been accurately presented.
Spain does not recognize as having ceded to
the United Kingdom any spaces other than those included in article
X of the Treaty of Utrecht.
Consequently, and with regard to the waters
surrounding Gibraltar, when ratifying the United Nations Convention
on the Law of the Sea in New York, on 5 December 1984, the Spanish
Government stated "that this act cannot be construed as
recognition of any rights or status regarding the maritime space
of Gibraltar that are not included in Article 10 of the Treaty
of Utrecht of 13 July 1713 concluded between the Crowns of Spain
and Great Britain". (This same statement was also made
by the Spanish Government when ratifying the previous United Nations
Convention on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone of 1958
(not 1952)).
Moreover, Spain also declared upon ratification
of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in its statement of
5 December 1984 that "it does not consider that Resolution
III of the Third United Nations Gonference on the Law of the Sea
is applicable to the colony of Gibraltar, which is subject to
a process of decolonization in which only relevant resolutions
adopted by the United Nations General Assembly are applicable".
Spain has more recently reiterated this doctrine
to the British Government by Note Verbale No 151/11 of 12 July
2007, issued in connection with the arrest in Spanish waters in
the vicinity of Gibraltar of a ship registered in Panama and owned
by a North-American company involved in underwater exploration.
This company took part in a case related to the protection of
the Spanish underwater cultural heritage. The Note Verbale states
the following:
"In accordance with Art 3 of the United
Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Spain, in no case, can
accept any limitation to its right to establish the breadth of
its territorial sea up to a limit not exceeding 12 nautical miles.
In case of adjacent or opposite coasts, as there are in the Straits
of Gibraltar, the Convention provides for an exception to the
general rule of the median line when it is necessary, for reasons
of historic title, to delimit the territorial sea in a different
way (Art 15).
In this respect it should be recalled that
Spain does not recognize the British sovereignity or jurisdiction
over other spaces than those that are included expressly in article
X of the Treaty of Utrecht. That is to say: `The town and castle
of Gibraltar, together with the port, fortifications, and forts
there-unto belonging'.
Therefore, the Rock does not create territorial
sea and the waters adjacent to the coast of Gibraltar are under
the sovereignty and jurisdiction of Spain".
I hope that you find this clarification useful
and can take it into account in your deliberations and in the
final report of your inquiry.
12 March 2008
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