This represents a significant concession for two reasons. First, East Timor
is effectively giving up its mooted retrospective claims regarding the exploita-tion of fields located to the east and west of the JPDA, as it is difficult to con-ceive of East Timor reviving these claims effectively after having acceded to
Australia’s insistence that Australia continue to administer the seabed south of
the 1972 continental shelf delimitation line. Second, East Timor, by confining
its claims to one particular complex of fields, albeit a particularly attractive
one in Greater Sunrise, is also apparently giving up any claim to any future
resource discoveries in those areas to the east and west of the JPDA. This
does not, however, mean that CMATS is without merit from an East Timorese
perspective. Indeed, it can be argued that this is far from the case, as the
benefitsflowing from the Treaty are likely to prove critical to East Timor’s future