¹ Proven reserves in the Caspian Basin are 15.31 billion barrels of oil, or 2.7% of world reserves. It is also estimated to contain some 230–360 trillion cubic feet of gas, or 7% of world reserves. Estimates of possible petroleum reserves vary from as few as 20 billion to as many as 200 billion barrels of oil. See The changing face of energy geopolitics, OECD Observer, June 22, 1999, at 48, available in lexis, News Library, Curnws File.

² The Caspian Sea is approximately 1,204 kilometers long and has a surface area of 436,000 square kilometers. By comparison, the combined area of the five Great Lakes in North America is approximately 244,000 square kilometers. See International Energy Agency, Caspian Oil and Gas 147 (1998) [hereinafter Caspian Oil & Gas].

³ See Robert B. O'Connor, Jr., et al., Future Oil and Gas Potential in Southern Caspian Basin, OIL & Gas J., May 3, 1993, at 117, 117.

⁴ See Brice M. Clagett, Ownership of Seabed and Subsoil Resources in the Caspian Sea under the Rules of International Law, Caspian Crossroads Mag., Summer/Fall 1995, at 3, 10.

⁵ See The New York Times Atlas of the World, plate 44 (9th rev. ed. 1994) (giving figure of 28 meters below sea level).

⁶ See 2 The New Encyclopaedia Britannica 924 (15th ed. 1998).

⁷ See William E.Butler, The Soviet Union and the Continental Shelf 63 AJIL 103, 106 (1969).

⁸ Some authoritative nonlegal sources have used more than one of the above labels to refer to the Caspian Sea. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, for example, uses both “inland sea” and “lake” to refer to the Caspian. 2 The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, supra note 6, at 923–24 (referring to the Caspian as the “world's largest inland sea”); 7 id. at 107 (referring to the “Caspian Sea” as a lake in Asia).

⁹ Professor Oxman has argued that, although the classification is significant, it must not dictate which of the different legal regimes that should apply to Caspian water, subsoil resources, fishing rights, shipping rights, and so forth. See Bernard Oxman, Caspian Sea or Lake: What Difference Does It Make? Caspian Crossroads Mag., Winter 1996, at 1.

¹⁰ Treaty of Peace and Perpetual Friendship, Oct. 12, 1813, Persia-Russ., 62 Consol. TS 435 (in French) [hereinafter Golestan Treaty]; Treaty of Peace and Friendship, Feb. 10 (22), 1828, Persia-Russ., 78 Consol. TS 105 (in French) [hereinafter Turkmenchai Treaty]. For the Persian texts, see Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Majmueh Moahedat-e do Janebeh-e Iran ba sayer-e Keshvarha [A Compilation of Bilateral Treaties between Iran and Foreign Countries] (1971), citedin Mohamad RezaDabiri, Rezhim-e hogugy-e darya-e khzar be onvan mabnaii baray-e solli va tose-eh [The Legal Regime of the Caspian Sea: A Basis for Peace and Development], Majalleh-e Motaleat-e Asyay-e Markaziva Gavgaz [Journal of Central Asian and Caucasian Studies] [hereinafter Majallehj, Summer 1994, at 1, 3 (published by the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs).

¹¹ Golestan Treaty, supra note 10, Art. 5, quoted in Dabiri, supra note 10, at 3.

¹² Turkmenchai Treaty, supra note 10, Art. 8, quoted in Dabiri, supra note 10, at 4.

¹³ Treaty of Friendship, Feb. 26, 1921, Persia-Russ. SFSR, 9 LNTS 383. Article 11 stated:

As Article 1 of the present treaty abrogates the treaty signed by the high contracting parties in February 1828, including Article 8 of that treaty, which deprived Iran of maintaining a naval force in the Caspian Sea, the high contracting parties hereby declare that henceforth both parties will have equal rights to free shipping under their own flags in the Caspian Sea.

Quoted in Dabiri, supra note 10, at 5 (trans, from Persian by author).

¹⁴ Treaty of Establishment, Commerce and Navigation, with Final Protocols and Annex, Aug. 25, 1935, Iran-USSR, Art. 15, 176 LNTS 301, 317. Article 14 stated:

The Contracting Parties agree that, in conformity with the principles set forth in the Treaty of February 26th, 1921, between the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic and Persia, there shall, throughout the area of the Caspian Sea, be only vessels belonging to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or to Iran and to nationals or commercial and transport organisations of one of the two Contracting Parties, flying the flag of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or that of Iran, respectively.

¹⁵ Treaty of Commerce and Navigation, Mar. 25, 1940, Iran-USSR, 144 Brit. & Foreign St. Papers 419 (1940–42); see William E. Butler, The Soviet Union and the Law of the Sea 102 (1971).

¹⁶ See Butler, supra note 15, at 102.

¹⁷ See Jamshid Momtaz, Vaziyyat-e hoghugi-e daryay-e Khazar [The Legal Situation of the Caspian Sea], Majalleh, Summer 1995, at 123, 127.

¹⁸ See Dabiri, supra note 10, at 7. The reference to the Caspian Sea as a “Soviet-Iranian sea” was also used in the notes attached to the 1935 Treaty, supra note 14, 176 LNTS at 329.

¹⁹ Agreement concerning the Settlement of Frontier and Financial Questions, Dec. 2, 1954, Iran-USSR, 451 UNTS 250.

²¹¹ See Butler, supra note 15, at 125.

²¹ See id. at 116–33.

²² See id. at 125. For a discussion of the closed-sea doctrine as applied to the Black Sea, see Joseph J. Darby, The Soviet Doctrine of the Closed Sea, 23 San Diego L. Rev. 685 (1986). Since the Caspian, unlike the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea, is not direcdy connected to the ocean, the Soviet classification of the Caspian as a “closed sea” did not give rise to opposition by outside powers.

²³ At the 1958 United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, Romania and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic proposed an addition to Article 1 of the Convention on the High Seas providing that “for certain seas a special regime of navigation may be established for historical reasons or by virtue of international agreements.” The United States, the United Kingdom, and others argued against the proposal on the grounds that it was an opening wedge for “closed seas.” See Gary Knight & Hungdah Chiu, The International Law of the Sea: Cases, Documents, and Readings 325–26 (1991).

²⁴ See Charles G. MacDonald, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Law of the Sea 160 (1980).

²⁵ Loi relative à l'exploration et à l'exploitation du “Falat Gharreh” (Plateau continental de l'lran) June 19,1955, Art. 2 note, Laws and Regulations on the Regime of the Territorial Sea 24, UN Doc. ST/LEG/SER.B/6, UN Sales No. 1957.V.2 (1957). The official French text of the law, provided by the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, translates “closed seas” as les mersfermees. The original Persian reads daryay-e basteh, literally “closed sea.” See Mohamad Reza Dabiri, Rezhime-e hoghugi-e daryay-e hhaxar: ameli baray-e tavazon manafeh va tavazon amniyat [The Caspian's Legal Regime: Balancing National Interests and National Security], Majalleh, Summer 1995, at 141, 144. The only published English text of the law, however, renders the relevant phrase as “inland sea,” without specifying the source of the translation. See 1 New Directions in the Law of the Sea (S. Houston Lay et al. eds., 1973).

²⁶ The Iranian lawmakers were probably referring to the doctrine of mare clausum, That doctrine, however, has never found international acceptance, and during the 19th and 20th centuries it received only passing notice from Western jurists. See Butler, supra note 15, at 116. According to the then deputy director of the Iranian Foreign Ministry's Institute of Political and International Studies, the legislative intent was to distinguish the Caspian legal regime from diose of odier bodies of water. Dabiri, supra note 10, at 7.

²⁷ See Momtaz, supra note 17, at 129. Commercial oil production in Azerbaijan goes back to the 19th century. Russian annual crude oil production from Azerbaijani fields rose from 600,000 barrels in 1874 to 10.8 million in 1884. See Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power 57 (1991).

²⁸ See Michael P. Croissant & Cynthia M. Croissant, The Caspian Sea Status Dispute: Azerbaijani Perspectives, Caucasian Regional Stud., No. 1, 1998 <http://poli.vub.accommodation.be/publi/crs/eng/0301-01.htm> (visited Mar. 7, 1999).

²⁹ SgeMomtaz, supra note 17, at 129.

³⁰ See id.

³¹ See Dabiri, supra note 25, at 142.

³² See Statement of the Foreign Ministry of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the results of the Kazakhstan-Russian consultations reflected in the statement dated 13 February 1998 of the Kazakhstan Foreign Ministry, UN Doc. A/52/913, annex (1998).

³³ See M. S. Nourian, Negareshhay-emotafavet darbarey-erezhim-ehogugy-edaryay-ekhazar [Alternative Viewpoints on the Caspian's Legal Regime], Majalleh, Summer 1996, at 105, 111 (the author was then the director of the Iranian Foreign Ministry's Department of Boundaries).

³⁴ See id. at 112.

³⁵ In its early position on this issue set out in 1993 in a draft treaty, Iran proposed that the Caspian Sea be jointly used and managed by the littoral states, and that participation by third states require the prior consent of all the littoral states. The legal status of the sea was left to be determined later. See Sergei Vinogradov & Patricia Wouters, The Caspian Sea: Quest for a New Legal Regime, 9 Leiden J. Int'l L. 87, 94 (1996).

³⁶ See Nourian, supra note 33, at 106.

³⁷ See id.

³⁸ The first Iranian official to apply the concept of condominium to the Caspian was Mohamad Reza Dabiri. See Dabiri, supra note 10, at 17 (using the Persian term Hakemiiat Mosha, which he translates in a footnote as “Condouminium or Res Communis”).

³⁹ This point is readily acknowledged by Iranian officials. See Nourian, supra note 33, at 115.

⁴⁰ The U.S. Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, Pub. L. No. 104-172, 110 Stat. 1541 (1996), threatens reprisals against foreign firms that invest more than $20 million a year in the country's energy sector. The legislation will expire in 2001.

⁴¹ In the northern third, the average depth of the Caspian is 6.2 meters; in the center, 176 meters; and in the south, 325 meters. See Caspian Oil & Gas, supra note 2, at 147. For both political and economic reasons, Iran has tried to secure a share in Azerbaijan's oil projects. On Azerbaijan's consortium deal, see note 54 infra.

⁴² See supra note 35.

⁴³ See the discussion below on the Russian and Azerbaijani positions.

⁴⁴ See Iran: Rowhani Calls for Unanimous Legal Regime for Caspian, Foreign Broadcast Information Service [hereinafter FBIS], Doc. FBIS–NES–98–270 (Sept. 27, 1998) (statement of Hassan Rowhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, to Russian Ambassador Konstantin Shuvalev). For the Iranian insistence on a single division scheme, see Iran: Maleki on policy toward US, Caspian Issues, Doc. FBIS–EAS–1999–0214 (Feb. 14, 1999) (interview with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Maleki) [hereinafter the date in the parenthetical to FBIS documents will omit the year, which is reflected in the document number, and subsequent cites to previously referenced FBIS documents will be by document number].

⁴⁵ See Hossein K. Ardabili, Rezhim-e hogugy-e khazar, toseye-e manabeh va khotut-e enerzhi [The Caspian's Legal Regime: The Development of Energy Resources and Pipelines], Majalleh, Spring 1998, at 45, 48 (the author is an adviser to the Iranian Foreign Affairs and Oil Ministries). Iran's new position regarding equal division of the Caspian may, in turn, be changing. In August 1998, Boris Pastukhov, the then deputy foreign minister of the Russian Federation, reported that Iranian negotiators were insisting on Iran's 20% share. See Azerbaijan: Recent Movement in Caspian Talks Assessed, Doc. FBIS–SOV–98–231 (Aug. 19). The latest pronouncements of Iranian officials call only for an “equitable” and “fair” division. Doc. FBIS–EAS–1999–0214, supra note 44 (statement of Iranian deputy foreign minister).

⁴⁶ See Joint statement on Caspian Sea questions adopted by Presidents of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in Baku on 16 September 1996, Art. 4, UN Doc. A/51/529, annex (1996).

⁴⁷ See Doc. FBIS–SOV–98–231, supra note 45 (statement by Azerbaijani foreign minister).

⁴⁸ See Russia: foint Azeri-Russian Statement Outlines Talks on Caspian Sea, Doc. FBIS–SOV–98–217 (Aug. 5).

⁴⁹ Both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have produced maps and documents showing that such a division, in fact, took place. Among these is an internal document of the USSR Ministry of Oil Industry, dated 1970, that divided the Soviet part of the Caspian among Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan “on the center line basis accepted in international practice.” See Mikhail Alexandrov, Russian-Kazakh Contradictions on the Caspian Sea Legal Status, Russ. & Eurasian Bull., Feb. 1998 (Contemporary Europe Research Center, University of Melbourne) <http://www.arts.unimelb.edu.au/Dept/CERC/bulfeb98.htm> (visited Feb. 19, 1999). These documents are at present the basis of negotiations between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan on how to divide their portion of the sea. Azerbaijan claims that this division must follow Soviet practice, while the Turkmens contend that the Soviet internal documents were only administrative decisions and did not have the force of international boundary treaties. See Azerbaijan: Azeri, Turkmen Teams Agree “Basic Points” on Caspian Sea, Doc. FBIS–SOV–98–040 (Feb. 9). (Turkmenistan's reported position, however, appears to be at variance with its earlier position calling for observance of Soviet-era divisions until the status of the sea is finally settled. See Turkmenistan—Background of Caspian Disputes, APS Rev. Oil Market Trends, Sept. 7, 1998, available in lexis, News Library, Curnws File.) Khushbakht Yusefzadeh, an adviser to Azerbaijan's vice president, has relied on the same documents to claim that Azerbaijan's share of the Caspian was 80,000 square kilometers. The shares of the other republics were reportedly as follows: Russia, 64,000 square kilometers; Turkmenia, 80,000 square kilometers; and Kazakhstan, 113,000 square kilometers. See Nourian, supra note 33, at 122. Vinogradov and Wouters point out that the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs unilaterally established a delimitation line that continued the land border between Astara and Husseingholi in 1935, but that it “has never been recognized by Iran as the Soviet-Iranian border.” Sergei Vinogradov & Patricia Wouters, The Caspian Sea: Current Legal Problems, 55 Zeitschrift fur auslandisches offentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 604, 609 (1995).

⁵⁰ See Nourian, supra note 33, at 23.

⁵¹ Article 11 of the Azerbaijan Constitution reads in relevant part: “The territory of the Azerbaijan Republic shall be united, inviolable and indivisible. The Azerbaijan Republic territory shall include the Azerbaijan Republic inner waters, the Caspian Sea (Lake) sector relating to the Azerbaijan Republic, and space over the Azerbaijan Republic.” <http://www.usia.gov/abtusia/posts/XA1/wwwtc011.txt> (visited Mar. 7, 1999). It is not clear whether Azerbaijanis insist on total sovereignty over their portion of the Caspian. Such a position, of course, would conflict with the law of the sea, which precludes full sovereignty beyond a 12-mile territorial sea but would allow sovereign mining rights within the exclusive economic zone.

⁵² “Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian is estimated to contain 25 of the 32 known oil and gas fields of the Sea as well as 145 of the 386 prospective structures.” Croissant & Croissant, supra note 28.

⁵³ Id.

⁵⁴ In 1994, during negotiations for an $8 billion deal with mainly Western oil companies, Azerbaijan offered Iran a 5% share in the consortium. The United States strongly objected to Iranian participation and threatened to persuade the Western oil companies to abandon the project. Azerbaijan eventually relented and substituted Turkey for Iran. The move predictably provoked strong Iranian opposition to the deal. See Vinogradov & Wouters, supra note 35, at 88.

⁵⁵ Glen Rase, the State Department's director of international energy policy, stated that,

[t]o my knowledge, no body of water like the Caspian is treated as condominium as the Russians prefer….The more normal course with bodies of water that fall on international boundaries … would be to have lines of divisions for economic purposes on the sea bed to create exclusive economic zones. That strikes us as a perfectly reasonable way to go forward and that certainly seems to be what the Kazakhs, Azeris and Turkmens desire.

Terry Manzi, Interview with Glen Rase, Caspian Crossroads Mag., Winter 1995 <http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/usazerb/11.htm> (visited Sept. 18, 1999). Azerbaijani officials have repeatedly stated that the United States supports their position. See Doc. FBIS–SOV–98–231, supra note 45 (statement of State Counselor for Foreign Policy Vafa Guluzade).

⁵⁶ Azerbaijan: Azerbaijan's Aliyev on Disagreement with Russia on Caspian, Doc. FBIS–SOV–98–217 (Aug. 5) (statement of Heydar Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan, to Interfax news agency). This understanding was confirmed in a Russian-Azerbaijani joint statement later that month. See Doc. FBIS–SOV–98–231, supra note 45.

⁵⁷ See Doc. FBIS–SOV–98–040, supra note 49 (statement of Elbars Kepbanov, deputy foreign minister of Turkmenistan, to Azerbaijan's Turan news agency).

⁵⁸ Some reports have indicated that Turkmenistan favors an equidistant line delineated without taking inlets or islands into consideration, while Azerbaijan would include them in its calculations. See Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan, Platt's Oilgram News, Apr. 1, 1998, available in lexis, News Library, Curnws File.

⁵⁹ One of the fields, called Serdar by the Turkmens and Kyapazby the Azerbaijanis, seems to lie, at least partially, in the Turkmen sector. In August 1997, following strong protests by Turkmenistan and apparendy in recognition of the validity of the Turkmen claims, Russian President Boris Yeltsin canceled an agreement between Rosneft and Lukoil to develop the field with Azerbaijan. The deal was reportedly worth $1 billion. See Azerbaijan wants clarification on Caspian, J. Com., Aug. 28, 1997, at 12A. Later that year, Turkmenistan appealed to the United Nations for assistance in setding the dispute. See Alexandrov, supra note 49.

⁶⁰ Yuri Fedorov, Russia's Policies toward Caspian Region Oil: Neo-Imperial or Pragmatic ? in Perspectives on Central Asia, Oct. 1996 (Center for Post-Soviet Studies, Carnegie Corp. of NY) (quoting Yakov Pappe) <http://www.cpss.org/casianw/octpers.html> (visited Dec. 28, 1999).

⁶¹ Andrew Seek et al., Azerbaijan: Rediscovering Its Oil Potential? A Legal Perspective, 13 J. Energy & Nat. Resources L. 147, 157 (1995) (quoting Fin. Times (London), May 31, 1994, at 2).

⁶² Letter dated 5 October 1994 from the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations Addressed to the Secretary-General (Position of Russian Federation regarding the legal regime of the Caspian Sea), UN Doc. A/49/475 (1994), reprinted in 10 International Organizations and The Law of the Sea: Documentary Yearbook 1994, at 195, 196 [hereinafter Russian 1994 Letter].

⁶³ Alma Ata Declaration, Dec. 21, 1991, 31 ILM 148 (1992).

⁶⁴ See Russian 1994 Letter, supra note 62, at 195–96; and Alexandrov, supra note 49.

⁶⁵ These talks were conducted in 1993 in London. SeeFedorov, supra note 60.

⁶⁶ Lukoil's share came out of that of the Azerbaijani national oil company and did not reduce the Western consortium's interest. See Seek et al., supra note 61, at 157.

⁶⁷ For details, see Fedorov, supra note 60.

⁶⁸ The tension between the Foreign and Fuel and Power Ministries surfaced in a conference on the legal status of the Caspian that took place in Moscow in October 1995. The director of the Legal Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry stated the standard position of his ministry, adding veiled criticism of Azerbaijan's unilateral actions in the Caspian. The vice president of Lukoil responded by emphasizing the economic and political benefits of cooperation between Russian and Azerbaijani oilmen, and went on to say: “[Lukoil] knows how to extract oil and how to do it in the best possible way, while the Foreign Ministry's employees know how to deal with political problems. Therefore, everyone is concerned with his own business.” Thus, the claim of Russia's deputy minister of foreign affairs, who stated in the same conference that there were “no differences of principle in the approach to the Caspian problem” between the two ministries, does not seem very credible. For a report on the conference, see Lev Klepatsky & Valery Pospelov, Manoeuvring Round the Caspian Sea, 10 Int'l Aff. 59 (Moscow 1995).

⁶⁹ See Robert V. Barylski, Russia, the West, and the Caspian Energy Hub, 49 Middle E.J. 217, 224 (1995). Barylski describes the behind-the-scenes struggle between the Foreign Ministry and the representatives of the oil interests in the Russian government, noting Chernomyrdin's refusal to adopt a hard-line policy. Id. at 223.

⁷⁰ See Azerbaijan: Caspian Sea Status to Be Discussed in Russian-Azeri Talks, Doc. FBIS–SOV–98–209 (July 28).

⁷¹ Id. Russia also signaled its willingness to accept other coastal states’ “spot jurisdiction” over oil sites outside the 45-mile zone if certain criteria were met, and if the sites were already being, or were about to be, developed. This stipulation seemed to recognize the interests of Lukoil and other Russian oil companies that were partners in these projects. See Alexandrov, supranote 49.

⁷² See Alexandrov, supra note 49.

⁷³ See Syed Rashid Ali, Russia/Kazakhstan Caspian Agreement, Petroleum Times Energy Rep., Feb. 1998, at 6, available in lexis, News Library, Curnws File.

⁷⁴ See Azerbaijan: Baku Encouraged by New Russian Proposals on Caspian, Doc. FBIS–SOV–98–041 (Feb. 10).

⁷⁵ See Russia and Kazakhstan share Caspian spoils, BBC Online Network, July 7, 1998 <http://news.bbc.co.uk> (visited Feb. 29, 1999).

⁷⁶ See id. In a joint statement signed by Azerbaijan and Russia in August 1998, the two sides agreed that the seabed should be divided into sector-zones along an equidistant line modified on “die basis of the principles of fairness and the agreement of the parties.” Doc. FBIS–SOV–98–231, supra note 45. Russia justifies its opposition to division of waters of the Caspian by arguing that it would violate the ecological integrity of the sea, but Russia's underlying concern is obviously that such a division would deprive it of a veto over the direction of proposed underwater pipelines. Russia claims that the best pipeline route is overland through its territory since underwater pipelines are ecologically unsafe. Interestingly, its opposition to underwater pipelines does not extend to those under the Black Sea, where Russia supports building a gas pipeline from its territory to Turkey. The deputy foreign minister has explained this discrepancy by noting diat, while the Caspian is earthquake prone, the Black Sea is not. See Russia warns of “banditry” if Caspian status is unresolved, BBC Online Network, Mar. 27, 1998 <http://news.bbc.co.uk> (visited Feb. 19, 1999). In response to Iran's objections, Russia has stated that the Russian-Kazakh agreement “does not create a special status for the nordiern part of the Caspian Sea, neither does it contradict the Soviet-Iranian treaties of 1921 and 1940.” See Russia: Spokesman on Russia, Iran Dividing Bed of Caspian Sea, Doc. FBIS–SOV–98–202 (July 21) (statement of Vladimir Rakhmanin, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, to ITAR-TASS). The fate of the Russian-Kazakh agreement is still unclear since the Duma has not ratified it. Andranik Migranyan, a member of the Russian Federation's Presidential Council, said in November 1998 that the Duma would probably reject the agreement. Georgii Tikhonov, the chairman of the Duma's Energy Committee, has also said that the Duma would consult all the littoral states, especially Iran, before debating on the deal. See Iran: Doubts over Russian Duma Approval of Caspian Agreement, Doc. FBIS–NES–98–311 (Nov. 7).

⁷⁷ See Alexandrov, supra note 49.

⁷⁸ See Vinogradov & Wouters, supra note 35, at 95.

⁷⁹ Law on the State Border, Oct. 1, 1993, Art. 6, cited in id. at 92–93.

⁸⁰ On the Azerbaijani-Turkmen understanding on “basic points” on the Caspian, see Doc. FBIS–SOV–98–040, supra note 49. The Kazakh-Turkmen agreement of March 1997 stated that “all countries bordering the Caspian Sea must stand by the principle of dividing the water area out to a middle line until the Caspian Sea's legal status is determined.” See Croissant & Croissant, supra note 28, at 10 (quoting agreement signed by the presidents of the two states).

⁸¹ The United States has attempted to expedite these negotiations by submitting proposals to both sides on how to draw a median line. Richard Morningstar, before leaving his post as special adviser to the president and secretary of state for Caspian Basin energy, reported that the U.S. experts had “submitted a scientific method to the Azerbaijani and Turkmen parties that will allow both parties to reach a mutually acceptable agreement.” He expressed the hope diat the parties would be able to reach an agreement “within a few months.” US Envoy's Comments on Azeri-Turkmen Dispute Reported, Doc. FBIS–SOV–1999–0624 (June 24).

⁸² These agreements include the one signed by Russia and Kazakhstan in July 1998, supra note 75, and the Turkmenistan-Kazakh agreement of March 1997, supra note 80. See also supra note 57 for the basic Azerbaijani-Turkmen understanding on division of the seabed.

⁸³ Oxman, supra note 9, at 6, 12.

⁸⁴ 3 J. H. W. Verzijl, International Law in Historical Perspective 19 (1970), quoted in Clagett, supra note 4, at 6.

⁸⁵ See Rodman R. Bundy, Janbehaye Hogugy-e hefazat az mohit-e zist-e daryay-e khazar, Majalleh, Summer 1996, at 138, translated from Legal Aspects of Protecting the Environment of the Caspian Sea, 5 Rev. Eur. Community & Int'l. Envtl. L. 122 (1996).

⁸⁶ Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Sal./Hond.: Nicar. intervening), 1992 ICJ Rep. 351 (Sept. 11), cited in Oxman, supra note 9, at 6.

⁸⁷ Clagett, supra note 4, at 7.

⁸⁸ It is estimated that up to 10% of Soviet offshore drilling production in the Caspian (approximately 300,000–400,000 tons of oil) escaped into the sea each year. In 1968 the USSR Council of Ministers adopted a

decree that, inter alia, prohibited the operation of new wells in the Caspian unless effective measures were taken to prevent pollution. See Butler, supra note 15, at 137–38. The oil pollution not only endangered rare marine life, but also was carried to the south and southwestern shores of the Caspian, where it washed up on beaches that were among the favorite holiday resorts of Iranians. Iranian concern was mainly responsible for a Soviet-Iranian agreement on pollution control in the Caspian signed in 1971. See David Housego, Iran-Russia action for cleaner Caspian, Times (London), Apr. 29, 1971, at 9.

⁸⁹ The other contentious issue is the legal regime of the Caspian waters. Iran is the only coastal state that has linked its agreement on the status of the seabed to that of the waters. See supra text at note 44.

⁹⁰ See, e.g., Karl Ernest Meyer & Shareen Blair Brysac, Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia (1999).