THE HAGUE (CN) — The International Court of Justice ruled on Thursday that countries cannot make claims on a maritime boundary that encroaches on the territory of another nation, dismissing a complaint from Nicaragua over some 30,000 square miles of sea.
The Hague-based court settled a two-decades-long legal dispute between the two Latin American countries fighting over small Caribbean islands and the waters rich in minerals and fish surrounding them.
"Irrespective of any scientific and technical considerations, Nicaragua is not entitled to an extended continental shelf within 200 nautical miles from the baselines of Colombia's mainland coast," President Judge Joan Donoghue said in reading the ruling.
The Colombia delegation hugged one another after the announcement of the decision.
“Great victory for Colombia in The Hague,” the country’s president Gustavo Petro said in a statement.
Managua brought its first complaint before the ICJ, sometimes referred to as the World Court, in 2001, accusing Bogota of disrespecting its maritime boundaries. More than 10 years later, the court gave Colombia control of several strategic islands, including the San Andrés archipelago, but gave the waters around those islands, about 30,000 square miles of territory, to Nicaragua.
The pair returned to the court again last year, with Nicaragua asking for control over the sea 200 nautical miles from its coast, including the San Andrés archipelago.
Competing claims over the series of Caribbean islands and the waters surrounding them date to the 1920s, when countries were declaring independence from Spain.
In response to the 2012 judgment, Colombia pulled out of the Pact of Bogotá, which underpinned the ruling and refused to respect the decision.
"The borders between nations cannot be in the hands of a court of law,” said then-Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in a statement at the time. According to the country’s constitution, its borders can be changed only by a bilateral treaty.
During a skirmish in 2015, the Colombian coast guard broadcast an announcement that the "ruling of The Hague is not applicable" to a Nicaraguan ship, according to recordings played in court.
Last April, the court ordered Colombia to respect the earlier decision, faulting Colombia for harassing Nicaraguan fishing vessels.
Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Carlos Argüello Gómez, Nicaragua’s ambassador to the Netherlands and agent at the court, told journalists his government would study the ruling but said: “Nicaragua has always complied with ICJ sentences and there is not even the slightest doubt that Nicaragua will accept and comply with this sentence.”
The International Court of Justice is often called on to settle border disagreements between countries. The court sided with Somilia over Kenya in another case over maritime territory in 2021, and a case between Guyana and Venezuela dating back to the 1800s is pending. The court has also ruled on borders between Peru and Chile as well as Romania and Ukraine.
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