Colombia and Nicaragua: International Court of Justice to rule on maritime dispute

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The International Court of Justice in The Hague will define on April 21 a lawsuit filed by Nicaragua against Colombia for what the Central American country claims are violations of its sovereign rights and maritime spaces in the Caribbean Sea.

The Court will define the claims by which Nicaragua assures that Colombia would have violated international law for “not having given application to the judgment of November 19, 2012, of the International Court of Justice” for operations of the Colombian Navy in the Caribbean and for having issued a decree Integral Continuous Zone in the Archipelago with which it ignores the 2012 judgment, informed the Colombian Foreign Ministry.

Colombia, for its part, counterclaimed Nicaragua, alleging that this country has violated the artisanal fishing rights of the inhabitants of the Archipelago “to access and exploit their traditional fishing banks”, as well as the “unilateral allocation of marine areas to the detriment of Colombia”, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The maritime area in dispute is recognized as rich and extensive for fishing and the exploration and probable exploitation of oil and other hydrocarbons.

After a years-long legal dispute that began in the early 20th century, in 2007, the International Court of Justice declared Colombia’s sovereignty over the islands of San Andres, Providencia, and Santa Catalina, which are located in the Caribbean Sea. But at that time, it did not define the maritime border between the two countries.

The process continued, and in 2012, The Hague awarded Nicaragua 80,000 km in the Caribbean Sea, and after that, Colombia said it would not recognize this ruling.

Nicaragua then asked the Court to intervene to force Colombia to comply with the 2012 ruling. And also to extend the continental shelf by more than 200 nautical miles.

“Nicaragua requested the Court to determine the single maritime boundary between the areas of the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zones corresponding to Nicaragua and Colombia, respectively, in the form of a median line between the continental coasts of the two States,” the court said in the 2012 judgment.

In this way, the Court granted Nicaragua to delineate a new line on the shelf with which it granted a maritime shelf of 200 nautical miles to the Central American country.

In response to the ruling, then Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos responded that his government did not accept the ruling, considering that the Court incurred “serious errors” in drawing a new maritime delimitation between this country and Nicaragua.

“Instead of limiting itself to draw the line in the area regulated by the Esguerra-Bárcenas treaty, it decided to extend the said line to the north and south of the archipelago”, Santos indicated in allusion to the agreement signed between the two countries in 1928 and which Nicaragua does not accept, considering that at that time the Central American country was militarily occupied by the United States.

The Colombian president declared that The Hague recognized Colombia’s sovereignty over the whole archipelago but then separated the keys of Serrana, Serranilla, Quitasueño, and Bajo Nuevo from the rest.

But Colombia, according to that moment and until now, said that the borderline claimed by Nicaragua “was located in an area where that country did not have any ownership” since “the two continental coasts are located more than 400 miles from each other”.

The Court will decide the case this Thursday, April 21.

With information from CNN