Bar Council of the Maldives has decided to conduct a research on how the maritime boundary dispute between the Maldives and Mauritius was solved.

A press statement released by the Bar Council on Monday night noted that the dispute is of national concern. The statement added that it is a responsibility of the council as mandated by the Legal Professions Act to publicize information regarding such cases.

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) ruled in favor of the Maldives on April 28th.

Mauritius and the Maldives have been fighting over a 37,000-square-mile expanse of the Indian Ocean before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, with both claiming the fish-rich waters as their own economic zones. Mauritius' submission to ITLOS stated that the point of determining the base point would start from the Blenheim Reef, which is visible during low tide.

The Maldives however, asserted that the base point cannot be determined by a reef spotted during low tide, according to international standards. In the case of the delimitation, the Maldives argued that the separation from the sea should be determined from the coast of Chagos Islands.

In its judgement, ITLOS backed the statements made by the Maldives in connection with the case. The special chambers of ITLOS in its judgement, ruled that there was no equivalent to the equidistance line to separate it from the reef seen in low tide.

ITLOS has allocated the disputed overlapping territory of 95,000 square kilometers between Maldives and Mauritius, providing each country with a 200-mile continental shelf. Maldives has been granted 47,232 square kilometers while Mauritius has been given 45,331 square kilometers.

With this ruling, after the conclusion of the case against Mauritius and in favor of the Maldives, the latter has been assured of an additional sea-area of 4,687 square kilometers from the disputed territory of the two countries.