Britain stakes claim for sea bed

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By Michael Buchanan BBC News

Britain has asked the United Nations to give it territorial rights to a large area of the South Atlantic Ocean.

The submission - before the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea - is for territory around the Falkland Islands, which is also claimed by Argentina.

The area in question is beyond the 200 miles of territorial rights that states almost automatically get around their coastal waters.

It covers an area around the south Sandwich Islands, south Georgia and the Falkland Islands.

And the western limits of the claim are about 300 miles or so from the Argentine coast - about the same distance as the Falklands.

Dr Lindsay Parson, from the National Oceanography Centre, who compiled the submission denied the UK's claim would put further strains on relations with Argentina.

"We've been expecting Argentina to make a claim for some time and Argentina has been expecting the UK to make a submission," he said.

"The states would be seeing this as an act of compliance with the convention rather than a grab specifically for mineral resources."

However, Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana said in a statement that Britain's move was "unacceptable and inadmissible".

He vowed his government would formally object to any attempt to extend the "illegal occupation" of Argentine territory.

Hugely problematic

One of the key motivators for many of the submissions to the UN are to be able to control any future mineral discoveries.

As well as the claims around the Falklands, the UK has also made submissions for extensions of its territorial waters around Ascension Island, the Bay of Biscay and Rockall, in the north Atlantic.

The Rockall claim, around an area known as the Hatton-Rockall basin, is also claimed by Ireland, Iceland and Denmark (on behalf of the Faroe Islands)

Ken Hitchen, from the British Geological Survey, has done some work around Rockall that suggests there may be some oil reserves there, but he says that bringing any oil to market would be hugely problematic.

Once these outer limits have been established those boundaries will be final and binding Dr Lindsay ParsonNational Oceanography Centre

"It's just so far to go," he says. "It takes about a day and a half steaming to get to the Hatton-Rockall basin.

"You are out of helicopter range if anything goes wrong and the whole thing is just so much more expensive to explore out there.

"You would probably have to find something as big or bigger than anything found in the North Sea at the moment."

New technology

The difficulties of getting anything to land from either Rockall or the South Atlantic are acknowledged by Dr Parson.

But he says claiming the rights to the sea bed are about securing control over them in case anything changes.

"Once these outer limits have been established those boundaries will be final and binding.

"Technology is advancing all the time and there may come a time when these resources - however large or small they are - may be more attractive than they are today."

It is now up to the UN to decide whether any or all of Britain's claims are valid.

But a decision is not expected any time soon - claims and counter-claims can take years to resolve.