Now Israel is accused of stealing - oil?

From UPI:

Palestinians report growing indications of oil in the occupied West Bank, which Israel may be quietly exploiting even as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu resists U.S. pressure to freeze Jewish settlement expansion in the territory.

Givot Olam Oil Exploration of Jerusalem disclosed some years ago it had made a commercial find estimated at 980 million barrels at its Meged field in eastern Israel right on the so-called Green Line that demarcates the West Bank.

The geological strata at Meged appear to run eastward into Palestinian territory around the village of Rantis.

Meged-5, part of the 62,500-acre exploratory block the government leased to Givot Olam for 30 years in April 2004, has reserves estimated at 1.5 billion barrels.

That's not a major strike in the general scheme of things but it would have an immense impact on Palestinians' aspiration for statehood and the West Bank's shaky, Israel-dependent economy that's based on agriculture.

"Geology doesn't follow geography," observed petroleum engineer Samer Naboulsi.

"Looking at the site of the flare and the shape of the overall field, it's clear this extends into the West Bank," he said.

"And even when extracting from the Israeli side, it'll be draining Palestinian reserves."

This is pretty thin evidence, but even if it is true, it looks like there is little wrong with what Israel is doing.

Forgetting the border dispute itself, a nation has the right to drill for oil in its own territory even if the oil field straddles borders.

According to this paper, there is nothing in international law that stops one party from drilling on their side of a cross-border oil field. It is preferable to reach a cooperation agreement but if that fails each side can act unilaterally.

If countries share a common hydrocarbon reservoir across an established border, and are unable to agree on a definitive unitization agreement after making reasonable efforts to cooperate, international law does not require them to unitize the reservoir.

Further, there is support among leading international scholars and practitioners for the proposition that a country may, if it is unable to reach a unitization agreement with a neighboring country, unilaterally exploit a cross-border reservoir, though it should be noted there is no international convention or court decisions directly upholding such proposition....

If neighboring countries subject to a “cooperation” standard do not reach a definitive agreement regarding unitization, there is no international convention that requires unitization between them.

Secondary sources of international law, including international court decisions and comments by scholars of international law, have specifically addressed the absence of a cross-border unitization obligation in connection with the “cooperation” standard.

One leading scholar, David M. Ong[8], has stated “it would be a mistake to construe the more stringent requirement of joint development as an inevitable consequence of the procedural rule requiring cooperation. While this rule obliges the parties to negotiate in good faith, it does not necessarily imply a duty to reach a specific type of agreement.”[9] Other scholars have noted that, Other scholars have noted that, despite the increase in international practice in concluding joint petroleum development agreements, “there is no legal obligation for countries to cooperate and agree to jointly develop in a disputed area ... [t]herefore, the concept of joint petroleum development cannot be said to be international customary law.”[10]

The ICJ decision in the North Sea Continental Shelf cases of 1969 is supportive of the view of such scholars. In the case, the tribunal held that the obligation of countries to negotiate international border disputes, including negotiations around development of common hydrocarbon reservoirs, does not require the countries to enter an agreement, but instead to “pursue them as far as possible with a view to concluding agreements.”[11]

(h/t PMB)