Limits Marine Areas — Limit Continenate Platform (Adriatic Sea)

The Continental Platform indicates the bottom and sub-fund of the coastal marine areas which extend, outside the territorial waters, to the isobath of 200 metres or, beyond this limit, to the point where, in relation to the development of mining technology, it is possible to exploit areas at greater depths (Geneva, IV, 1). The principles adopted by Italy for the regulation of the exploration and extraction of hydrocarbons in its continental shelf are contained in Law No 613 of 21 July 1967. The legislation regulates the conditions for granting research permits by stipulating, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the IV Geneva Convention of 1958, that the limit of the Italian continental shelf consists of the isobata of 200 m or, further, of points of greater depth, if the mining technique so permits, up to the ‘median line between the Italian coast and that of the States facing it’, unless, by agreement, a different border is established. The Agreement with Yugoslavia of 8 January 1968 (ratified by Presidential Decree No 830 of 22 May 1969; in force since 21 January 1970): following the criterion of the median between the coasts of the two countries, Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro were successors to this Agreement. Italy and Croatia entered into a technical understanding in 2005 which, leaving unchanged the content of the 1968 Agreement, in order to remedy the uncertainty of the non-unique map data, transformed the coordinates of points 1 to 42 of the continental shelf delimitation line drawn on the Italian and former Yugoslav charts annexed to the 1968 Agreement into datum WGS 84. In the Agreement with Albania of 18 December 1992 (ratified by Law No 147 of 12 April 1995 and entered into force on 26 February 1999), the delimitation was determined on the basis of the principle of equal distance expressed on the midline from the coasts of the two countries without taking into account their straight baselines.