Otvorena granična pitanja Crne Gore i Hrvatske
Open Border Issues of Montenegro and Croatia

Summary/Abstract: The violent dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) resulted in the transformation of the republics’ administrative borders into international borders through the application of the international legal principle of uti possidetis. Due to the absence of administrative borders between the Yugoslav republics at the Adriatic Sea, this principle was not applicable for maritime delimitation after the succession of the SFRY. In the case of Montenegro and Croatia, as the successor states to the SFRY, the situation was further complicated by the fact that the administrative border in the hinterland of the Adriatic Sea was not clearly defined during the time of the former Yugoslavia, making it impossible to achieve substantive progress with regard to maritime delimitation. However, Croatia claims the opposite, maintaining that the order with Montenegro in the area of the Prevlaka Peninsula was undisputedly drawn during the time of the former Yugoslavia, while Montenegro denies this claim, citing legal and historical reasons in support of its position. Although there was no minimum agreement between the parties to the dispute concerning the inherited land administrative line, in their desire to contribute to lasting peace and stability in the meantime, the two states nevertheless made some progress towards the development of good neighbourly relations by concluding the Protocol on the Interim Regime along the Southern Border in 2002. The Protocol established the temporary border of the territorial sea, but it did not prejudge the final decisions regarding international delimitation. Negotiations on delimitation, which had been ongoing until then, subsequently reached an impasse due to the adoption of a series of unilateral legal acts through which the parties declared their territorial claims over different parts of the Adriatic Sea. The issue of mutual delimitation returned to the political agenda only after oil and gas deposits were discovered on the seabed and subsoil of the Adriatic Sea. Delimitation thus emerged as a contentious issue in bilateral relations, as these discoveries exacerbated the territorial dispute and transformed the Adriatic Sea into a region of geo-economic competition. However, this did not mean Montenegro and Croatia could not reach an appropriate compromise; rather, both states have persistently failed to do so, justifying the absence of an agreement for opportunistic reasons. To reach equitable and balanced solutions, these two states must agree on demarcation based on international law. This presupposes the renunciation of voluntarist decisions and the policy of mutual conditioning, but also goodwill and greater flexibility in the application of the already achieved solutions from the Protocol on the Interim Regime along the Southern Border, as well as other solutions that are present in contemporary international practice and do not exclude the establishment of joint development zones or hybrid natural resource management regimes.

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