Territorial and Maritime Dispute (Nicaragua v. Colombia), 2001

The long-standing territorial and maritime dispute between Nicaragua and Colombia is enshrined in a complex political geography. The western Caribbean’s geostrategic location and the richness of its mineral and biological resources, including lagoons and reefs, makes it a fragile yet quintessential place for any sovereign battle. Hence, it is with no surprise that the tension among its neighbours has been palpable for years. On the basis of the Pact of Bogota,1 Nicaragua instituted proceedingsagainst Colombia in 2001, requesting the International Court of Justice (hereinafter ‘ICJ’) to determine the sovereignty over the islands of Providencia, San Andres, and Santa Catalina as well as all the appurtenant islands and keys and over the Roncador, Serrana, Serranilla, and Quitasueno keys. It further requested the Court to determine the course of a single maritime boundary separating the exclusive economic zones and the continental shelves of Colombia and Nicaragua. By means of its judgment from 13 December 2007, the Court confirmedits jurisdiction to adjudicate the dispute. Interested to intervene, Costa Rica and Honduras filed permissions to the ICJ in 2010, which were refused in a judgment rendered on 4 May 2011. Public hearings were held shortly after and another judgment, dated 19 November 2012, (hereinafter ‘Nicaragua/Colombia’)2 finally adjudicated the claims introduced in 2001. It unanimously confirmed Colombia’s sovereignty over all the seven islands, unanimously drew the single maritime boundary in favour of Nicaragua, and unanimously rejected Nicaragua’s claim on the extended continental shelf. This long-awaited judgment is of great interest to the internationalcommunity because of its subject matter and its regional impact. Following the 2012 judgment, Nicaragua introduced a new claim against Colombia toshortly before the effective denunciation of the Pact of Bogota by Colombia.4 This ICJ claim is based on the Nicaraguan extended continental shelf submission that exacerbated the disputes with Colombia and its neighbours (namely Costa Rica, Panama, and Jamaica). Indeed, Columbia, Costa Rica and Panama all declared in various communications sent to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf 5 (hereinafter ‘CLCS’) that the new Nicaraguan claim violated their ocean spaces and threatened the regional peace and security of the Caribbean. In light of these recent developments, only one aspect of the 2012 judg-ment will be analyzed. While the ICJ rejected Nicaragua’s claim on the delimitation of its extended continental shelf, it did address and analyze, for the first time in ICJ’s history and the first time in the history of the international settlement of disputes, the applicable law to the delimitation of the extended continental shelf between a State Party (Nicaragua) to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (hereinafter ‘UNCLOS’) and a non-Party State (Colombia). This task was therefore delicate and difficult given the youth of the implementation of continental shelf regime of UNCLOS dedicated to the extended continental shelf area.