Limits Marine Areas - Continent Platform Limit (Adriatic Sea)

The Continental Platform indicates the bottom and background of coastal marine areas extending, outside territorial waters, to the 200-metre isobath or, beyond this limit, to the point where, in relation to the development of mining technology, it is possible to exploit areas located at greater depths (Geneva, IV, 1). The principles adopted by Italy for the regulation of the exploration and extraction of hydrocarbons on its continental shelf are contained in Law No 613 of 21 July 1967. The legislation regulates the conditions for the issue of research permits by establishing, in harmony with the relevant provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1958, that the limit of the Italian continental shelf is constituted by the 200 m isobate or, further on, by points of greater depth, if the extraction technique allows, up to the \"median line between the Italian coast and that of the states facing it\", unless, with 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): It follows the criterion of the median between the coasts of the two countries, Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro are successor states 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 overcome the uncertainty of non-unique cartographic data, transformed into WGS 84 datum the coordinates of points 1 to 42 of the boundary line of the continental shelf traced on the Italian and former Yugoslav nautical charts annexed to the 1968 Agreement. 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 equidistance expressed in the midline from the coasts of the two countries without taking into account their straight baselines.