Foreign Minister Miguel Vargas announced the signing of an agreement with the law firm Foley Hoag LLP for counsel in maritime boundary cases to the National Maritime Boundary Delimitation Commission (Comisión Nacional de Delimitación de Fronteras Marítimas). The firm will assist the Dominican government in sea border limits negotiations with neighboring countries. The announcement comes after repeated arrests of Dominican fishermen by Jamaican and Bahamian authorities for supposedly illegally fishing in their territorial waters.
Vargas explained that the purpose of contracting the law firm is “to define our maritime borders in the most favorable terms allowed under the Law of the Sea” referring to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. He said the effort is inspired by the defense of national interests and always respecting the national and international legal framework.
Other members of the National Maritime Boundary Delimitation Commission participating in the event were Defense Minister Rubén Darío Paulino Sem, Minister of Defense, Vice Admiral Emilio Recio Segura, General Commander of the Dominican Armada; Flavio Darío Espinal, legal advisor to the Executive Branch; and Pascual Prota Henríquez, president of the National Maritime Affairs Authority (Anamar) and executive secretary of the Commission.
By Decree 237-18, in June of 2018, President Danilo Medina created the National Maritime Boundary Delimitation Commission to determine the maritime borders of the Dominican Republic and present recommendations to the Presidency. The decree established that the Dominican Republic has already signed maritime delimitation agreements with Colombia and Venezuela. Still pending are the borders with Haiti, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (Turks & Caicos Islands, as a British overseas territory), the USA (Puerto Rico) and the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Aruba and the Dutch Caribbean).
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Foley Hoag
8 April 2019