Bangladesh’s Maritime Policy

Entwining Challenges

Abul Kalam

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780429883538
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Following successive international legal verdicts, Bangladesh is now an accredited maritime state. Possessing a spacious territorial sea and an extended continental shelf, with a maritime zone almost equalling its land borders, a 'window of opportunity' has opened for the country to realise its developmental aspirations. Yet, it faces numerous challenges, many of which are entwined.

This book is a detailed analysis of Bangladesh's maritime strategy. It charts the country's maritime legacies, including disputes with both Myanmar and India and analyses the contributions of the leadership in the maritime territorial gains. The author examines Bangladesh's need to consolidate these newly reclaimed gains, whilst exploring the unremitting interest of major global power players in maintaining maritime resource exploitation, navigation and security. Finally, the author demonstrates how the country needs to embrace the notional principles of sustainable development of its ocean economy to utilize its resources and how it has since been coming to grips with the emerging concept of "blue economy" to enhance its enduring national development.

The first systematic study on Bangladesh's maritime policy and the country's importance in the emerging geopolitical rivalry in the Indian Ocean, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of South Asian and Indian Ocean politics.

1 Introduction

Introduction

Bangladesh presently has a distinctive identity as a maritime state; it is a lawfully acknowledged member of the international comity of maritime nations. Such an enviable position for the country as an accredited maritime nation-state is more recent, though the Bangladeshis carry huge maritime legacies. Yet as a sovereign state it did not inherit any maritime status with demarcated nautical frontier or marine boundary; it did not carry either an enduring maritime legacy in its conscious politico-security awareness, strategic formulations or in policymaking.

However, since the people of Bangladesh have a proud tradition as being maritime oriented it is imperative to have a fuller appraisal of the country’s historical maritime legacies. In the post independence period the country made legislative endeavours to establish its maritime claims. Diplomatic efforts were also unveiled to overcome the challenging contentions facing the new state in establishing its maritime entitlements and securing the maritime borderline against the claims made by its larger neighbours. The more recent international legal verdicts concerning its maritime claims (2012/2014) did make a difference.

As a Bay of Bengal (BoB) littoral the country has now extended neighbourly relations in maritime terms with many other nations across wider oceans and aquatic shores.¹ Currently being a trade-oriented nation Bangladesh has also unfolded a strategic vision designed to put in appearance its maritime aspirations, including the building of a sustainable “blue economy.” Consequently, it faces manifold challenges in the process of this up-and-coming global neighbourliness.

All these call for careful appraisals and analytical scrutiny. There have been other emerging concerns. Since the international maritime verdicts, the country has been offered an enormous prospect for maritime gains in terms of the acquisition of additional territories; it also has a vast prospect for the exploitation of resources in order to augment its national interest. The challenges facing Bangladesh in consolidating and enhancing those gains are just as enormous. The country needs to gear up its efforts for overcoming such challenges. Since the verdicts no doubt multilevel efforts have been underway to alleviate and mitigate many of the impediments and meet the challenges confronting the country. However, a national maritime policy frame is yet to fully evolve or shape itself; the nation must familiarize itself with how to move with the conceptual diagnoses. It seems that substantive preparedness is required to show how the multifaceted challenges can be overcome.

With this backdrop in mind, the book in the present chapter appraises, firstly, the investigative trends in the field, and, secondly raises relevant analytical questions. It sets, thirdly the objectives, and, fourthly depicts the methodological approaches. Fifthly the thematic breaks are outlined, and sixthly some contrasting macro-dimensional features and paradoxes in the overall policy pursuits are depicted. Finally, the conclusion underlines the significance of the analyses made and findings offered.

Investigative trends

Since the international verdicts Bangladesh has come to the glare of attention of maritime specialists of all shades. These include juridical/legal experts, oceanographers, political and social scientists, security observers, strategic analysts and policymakers. A cursory glance at the available literature suggests an increasing range of investigative research and policy-oriented analysis encompassing issues and themes covering the wider spectrum of subjects relevant to the maritime challenges facing Bangladesh.

Analyses from wide ranging strands suggest diverse approaches. Some of the earlier analysts preferred a legal approach, whilst others preferred diplomacy as a way forward, coupling a blend of legal and extra-legal methods for the purpose of delimitation and securing the maritime resources and offshore territory of Bangladesh.² Some analysts writing on the gains Bangladesh made in the international verdicts, pleaded for reinforcing a robust security approach;³ some of them argued in favour of a comprehensive security; others preferred an amalgam of traditional/non-traditional aspects of maritime security and strategy, the entirety of national policies, security of territorial fishing lanes and promotion of sovereign rights of the nation’s seafarers.⁴ Quite a few placed greater importance on resource exploitation, environmental security, regional maritime co-operative security mechanism, and to “blue economy” (BE).⁵ Post-verdict writings also placed emphases on resource exploitation, pursuit of diplomacy towards materializing better prospects⁶ or on issues such as the emerging force structure of the Bangladesh Navy (BN), navigational security, micro/macro aspects of security focused on threat perceptions, problematic concerns of security and the strategic environment affecting relations between Bangladesh and its maritime neighbourhood.⁷ A number of competent scholars wrote on sectoral areas and on resource exploitation and resource management.⁸ Following the international verdicts the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) also decided to embrace the BE blueprint as a grand strategy. The objective has been to seize the opportunities that might be obtainable under BE conceptual initiatives; analytical efforts at the official level since then have been underway to speed up the process of maritime growth initiatives along the conceptual direction of BE planning.⁹

All these wide-ranging areas covered indicate gains already made in the subject, in both academic and objective policy analyses. However, it should be noted that an emergent body of literature internationally placed a great deal of emphasis on prevalent aspects of maritime security and its relationship to issues such as globalization, concerns like environmental justice and legal matters, law of the sea in an evolving world order along with the BE planning.¹⁰ The earlier body of strategic and maritime literature continue to have their ramifications on all carcasses of analytical approaches and research trends concerning maritime studies.¹¹

The present book, though focused on Bangladesh’s maritime policy, keeps in view the enormous analytical developments in the strategic and maritime fields; it also values the contribution of each of such works and relates the scale of research interest and investigative perspectives so far offered in the field. However, there are perceptible gaps when it comes to policy coherence in Bangladesh’s maritime policy. The book diagnoses lacunae in conceptual continuity and in the developing analytical dimensions. It also locates their converging links to the broader ranges of policy that may perhaps be essential or relevant for Bangladesh, keeping in purview the legacies, gains made, and prospects offered. It seeks to update the dimensions of maritime thinking, making it more focused on the emerging strategic security contexts and pertinent also to the sustainable ocean economy.

The country’s history as an independent nation-state is recent when compared with many others in the maritime neighbourhood and in the wider oceanic regions. As already indicated, Bangladesh did not inherit any demarcated maritime boundary; hence as a sovereign maritime entity it carries no enduring maritime legacy in terms of conscious attentiveness, strategic formulations, and policymaking or in action planning. There is also surprisingly a lack of awareness about the provisos of conceptual delineation at the strategic and security levels among those who presumably are dedicated to study and/or promote scholarly erudition in the field of marine and oceanic study in the country.

Analytical questions

With this backdrop the author raises several pertinent questions; the idea is to identify challenges facing Bangladesh, locate the maritime legacies, and epitomize the gains made and enhance the prospects the country may have. The analytical questions are:

• What maritime legacies do the Bangladeshis as people have that may prove to be inspirational towards redeeming a better destiny for their national entity, and what parameters may help locate such legacies?

• What maritime gains did Bangladesh make in recent years in terms of aquatic space, besides the resources therein, and how does it envisage developing them to enhance its national aspirations?

• What are the nation’s maritime security objective ends and what means are available or can be visualized to attain or materialize those aspirations?

• How does Bangladesh visualize developing its oceanic resources that would be sustainable in terms of the emergent principles of blue economy?

• How to identify all the foregoing interests and aspirations in terms of the conceptual parameters required for better appraisal and understanding, keeping in perspective the challenging needs of a coherent policy framework?

All such questions overlap, even entangle and the challenging issues that emerge also appear equally intertwined.

Objectives

Keeping all the foregoing concerns and issues in view the study assembles conceptual threads in a framework so that the analysts, policymakers, practitioners and service professionals may find them a useful tool. The objectives are to help create a momentum towards better maritime awareness and to contribute towards charting a secure maritime destiny for Bangladesh. With such objectives it seeks to forward a five-fold mode of thinking:

First relates to maritime legacies; it encompasses both historical and more recent practice by legislative means, taking in the leadership perception and vision along with their diplomatic pursuits and relevant politico-economic policymaking.

Second relates to the gains made, the prospects of resources exploitation of resources and expansion of facilities/services: Given the needs of exploitation and use of all potential maritime resources it is imperative to concretize effective maritime policies and expand the relevant facilities/services towards guaranteeing national interests. The areas contemplated include creating national awareness, advancing maritime education, and enhancing both communication and navigational (i.e. ports and shipping), putting in place equally durable strategic means for augmentation of resources and business enlargement as a mature and an emerged maritime nation.

Third relates to transformation as a trading nation: As Bangladesh comes to the glare of the world, perhaps happily, out of its aid dependence and progressively moves toward trade orientation it needs to develop set of policies that would be business friendly, help expand its trading pursuits and facilitate such multilevel connectivity that would secure its developmental objectives.

Fourth relates to strategic security imperatives: As a maritime nation Bangladesh must overcome threats of multiple natures. Being in a competitive maritime strategic neighbourhood Bangladesh needs to appraise manifold insecurities affecting the nation’s destiny. It must appraise both conventional/traditional and nonconventional/non-traditional insecurity concerns in the newly acquired maritime territory; then the follow-up decision-making, policy options and action plans must keep in view towards meeting the nation’s challenging needs in the relevant areas. It also must be concerned about identifying the powers that are likely to be friendly and be supportive, and the powers may turn out to be antagonistic or obtrusive to its long time maritime interests?

Fifth relates to perceptions of national interests and triumph over developmental and ecosystemic threats: The threats include those likely to have serious ramifications for developing its maritime resources for policymaking and action planning via BE towards sustainable development.

It is pertinent to analyse and organize all the foregoing key objectives with their empirical referents in the correct perspective, as they are interconnected; yet the presumed interconnectedness requires being spotted in precise conceptual dimensions. The ranges of perspectives offered are structured in a manner so that the objectives do not get diluted in the complexities of analytical dimensions offered.

Methodological approaches

To cope with the foregoing questions and objectives, the relevant analytical challenges and applicable methodologies warrant appraisal:

First, the maritime sector is a relatively a new field of academic enquiry, especially with regard to Bangladesh; hence it demands an inclusive understanding of both legacies and the special characteristics of the nation’s current maritime space.

Second embraces the discernible complexities in the contentious claims over maritime territories, assertions of sovereignty over the nearby aquatic space and the exploitation of resources, operations of the ships and ports, functional now and likely to grow in future.¹²

Third comprises business and trade requirement services within and beyond the country’s geophysically zigzag shaped coastal belt, including naval and coastguard maritime ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Maritime legacies and vision
• 3. Maritime gains and prospects
• 4. Maritime destiny: entwining challenges
• 5. Maritime security: strategic imperatives
• 6. The blue economy: opportunities and challenges
• 7. Conclusions
• Index