The Albania–Italy Boundary Agreement is a 1992

treaty A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by international law. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention ...

between

Albania Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...

and

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

in which the two countries agreed to

delimit A delimiter is a sequence of one or more Character (computing), characters for specifying the boundary between separate, independent regions in plain text, Expression (mathematics), mathematical expressions or other Data stream, data streams. An ...

maritime boundary A maritime boundary is a conceptual division of Earth's water surface areas using physiographical or geopolitical criteria. As such, it usually bounds areas of exclusive national rights over mineral and biological resources,VLIZ Maritime Boun ...

between them in the

continental shelf A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an islan ...

. The treaty was signed in

Tirana Tirana ( , ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in Albania, largest city of Albania. It is located in the centre of the country, enclosed by mountains and hills, with Dajti rising to the east and a slight valley to the northwest ov ...

on 18 December 1992. The text of the treaty sets out boundary in the

Strait of Otranto The Strait of Otranto (; ) connects the Adriatic Sea with the Ionian Sea and separates Italy from Albania. Its width between Punta Palascìa, eastern Salento, and Karaburun Peninsula, western Albania, is less than . The strait is named after ...

composed of 16 straight-line maritime segments defined by 17 individual coordinate points. The boundary represents an approximate equidistant line between Italy and Albania. The northernmost point of the boundary forms a maritime

tripoint A triple border, tripoint, trijunction, triple point, or tri-border area is a geography, geographical point at which the boundaries of three countries or Administrative division, subnational entities meet. There are 175 international tripoints ...

with

Montenegro , image_flag = Flag of Montenegro.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Montenegro.svg , coa_size = 80 , national_motto = , national_anthem = () , image_map = Europe-Mont ...

; the southernmost point forms a maritime tripoint with

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. The treaty is unique among maritime boundary treaties in that it allows any dispute regarding the boundary to be referred by either of the countries to the

International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...

if it cannot be resolved by diplomatic means within four months.Charney, Jonathan I. ''et al.'' (2005). ''International Maritime Boundaries,'' p. 3302 The full name of the treaty is ''Agreement between Albania and Italy for the determination of the continental shelf of each of the two countries''.

Notes

References

* Anderson, Ewan W. (2003). ''International Boundaries: A Geopolitical Atlas.'' Routledge: New York.
OCLC 54061586
* Blake, Gerald Henry and Duško Topalović. (1996). ''The Maritime Boundaries of the Adriatic Sea.'' Durham, United Kingdom:

International Boundaries Research Unit The International Boundaries Research Unit (IBRU) is a research centre at Durham University Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham ...

(IBRU).
OCLC 246246871
* Charney, Jonathan I., David A. Colson, Robert W. Smith. (2005). ''International Maritime Boundaries,'' 5 vols. Hotei Publishing: Leiden. ; ; ; ;
OCLC 23254092

External links

Full text of agreement
1992 in Albania 1992 in Italy Treaties concluded in 1992 Albania–Italy border Boundary treaties Treaties of Italy Treaties of Albania {{Treaty-stub