Re: Paracels and Spratleys

[Aiviet Nguyen <aiviet@cat.syr.edu>]

Good design idea, but hard to implement.


On Thu, 27 Mar 1997 huy.duong@ctsu.ox.ac.uk wrote:

> Dear friends,
> 
> I have an idea on how to divide these archipelagoes and their
> related resources. I think this idea is geographical and not
> political/nationalistic and thereby avoids many conflicts.
> What do you think?
> 
> For an archipelago, find the `centre of gravity', this CoG represents the 
> archipelago.
> 
> A small bit of coastline will exert an ownership on the CoG that is:
> 1)proportional to the angle substended at the CoG,
> 2)inversely proportional to some power, eg 1, of the distance
> from the CoG.
> 
> (The reason for rule (2) is as follows. Suppose country A has a coastline
> that is a semicircle of radius a centred on an island and country B has a
> coastline that is a semicircle of radius b(>a) also centred on the island.
> Although both coastlines substend the same angle of 180 degrees on the island,
> A is nearer and should have more ownership.)
> 
> For each country, calculate the ownership by all bits of coastline
> that satisfy the following conditions: 
> a)used by the international convention of the seas to calculate
> ownership of the seas,
> b)a straight line (strictly speaking a geodesic) can be drawn from that bit of 
> coastline to the CoG without going over (i) that country's or (ii) other 
> countries' land.
> 
> (The reason for (i) is so that for example the Indian Ocean coast of Malyasia
> is irrelevant. The reason for (ii) is so that Australia's coast is irrelevant.)
> 
> The resources related to the archipelago are defined by the international
> convention of the seas. They are then jointly exploited and the costs and 
> benefits divided among the countries according to the ratios of ownership.
> 
> Huy
>