Piran Bay
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The Piran Bay (Slovenian Piranski zaliv, Croatian Piranski zaljev, recently also Savudrijska vala Savudrija Bay, Italian Baia di Pirano), named after the town of Piran, is a bay in the northern part of Adriatic Sea and part of Gulf of Trieste. It measures around 20 km².
Since 1991, the border between Slovenia and Croatia in Piran Bay has been disputed, due to Slovenia's desire to obtain a direct corridor from its own territorial waters to international waters (to avoid the necessity of Slovenian ships having to sail through the territorial waters of any other country to get to the high seas). The two countries disagree about the border, as it was never defined in the former Yugoslavia. Slovenia claims that Savudrija was connected with Piran throughout centuries, and that Slovenian police always controlled the whole bay between 1954 (dissolution of the Free Territory of Trieste) and 1991 (breakup of Yugoslavia), so the whole bay should belong to Slovenia. Croatia, on the other hand, claims that the border line should be equidistant from both shores, a claim based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. In 2001 Janez Drnovšek and Ivica Račan, then prime ministers of both countries, signed a highly disputed agreement about the border between the states. According to that agreement, Croatia would get approximately one third of the bay and grant Slovenia a corridor to international waters. However, Croatia never ratified this agreement, while Slovenia did so soon after it was signed.
After the independence of both nations, Piran Bay has been a place of conflict for fishermen from both countries and the police.
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