III. land and maritime boundary between cameroon and nigeria (cameroon v nigeria:: Equatorial guinea intervening), merits, judgment of 10 october 2002

International and Comparative Law Quarterly

Volumn 52, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 788-797

  Merrills, J G ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84962486884     PISSN: 00205893     EISSN: 14716895     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/iclq/52.3.788     Document Type: Article

References (27)

1. Case concerning the Land and Maritime Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria (Cameroon v Nigeria: Equatorial Guinea Intervening), Judgment of 10 Oct 2002, ICJ Rep 2002.
2. For the text see the Court's website which also contains a comprehensive summary of the judgment in Press Release 2002/26 bis.
3. See the Court's Order of 15 Mar 1996, ICJ Rep 1996, 13
4. the author's case note in (1997) 46 ICLQ 676.
5. See the Court's Judgment of 11 June 1998, ICJ Rep 1998, 275
6. the author's case note in (1999) 48 ICLQ 651.
7. See the Court's Judgment of 25 Mar 1999, ICJ Rep 1999, 31 the above case note at 657–8.
8. See the Court's Order of 30 June 1999, ICJ Rep 1999, 24
9. the author's case note in (2000) 49 ICLQ 720 at 723.
10. See the Court's Order of 21 Oct 1999, ICJ Rep 1999, and the author's case note n 5 above.
11. On the legal relationship between effectivités and titles the Court here recalled its observation in the Burkina Faso/Mali Frontier Dispute case that ‘Where the act does not correspond to the law, where the territory which is the subject of the dispute is effectively administered by a State other than the one possessing legal title, preference should be given to the holder of the title’, ICJ Rep 1986, 587, para 63.
12. Here the Court quoted the view of the arbitrator in the Island of Palmas case that in this second type of case ‘suzerainty over the native States becomes the basis of territorial sovereignty towards other members of the community of nations’ (RIAA Vol II, 858–9)
13. also its own observation in the Western Sahara case that agreements with local rulers may provide ‘derivative roots of title’, ICJ Rep 1975, 39, para 80.
14. As with its ruling with regard to the Lake Chad area, the Court again relied here on its observations in the Frontier Dispute case, see n 9 above.
15. See ICJ Rep 1998, 275, para 117
16. Merrills, ICJ Rep at 654–655.
17. See ICJ Rep 1998, 275 paras 107–111.
18. On a related point the Court also rejected Nigeria's argument that the Maroua Declaration was invalid because it was never ratified, holding that the Declaration was the type of treaty that entered into force upon signature.
19. See, eg, the Libya/Malta case, ICJ Rep 1985
20. In the Jan Mayen case in 1993 Judge Oda argued that Denmark's unilateral application to the Court should likewise be dismissed, although both Denmark and Norway had accepted the Court's jurisdiction under the optional clause. For a review of Judge Oda's thinking on this and related issues see JM Van Dyke, ‘Judge Shigeru Oda and Maritime Boundary Delimitation’, in N Ando, E McWhinney, and R Wolfrum, Liber Amicorum Judge Shigeru Oda (The Hague: Kluwer, 2002), vol 2, 1197.
21. ICJ Rep 1982, 18.
22. ICJ Rep 1985, 13.
23. See I Sinclair, The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 2nd edn (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), at 169–171.
24. It is interesting to note that Cameroon claimed that Nigeria's international responsibility was based inter alia on its failure to comply with the order indicating provisional measures of protection which the Court made in 1996. Following the Court's recent ruling in the LaGrand case, ICJ Rep 2001, it appears that failure to comply with such an order could entitle a State in the position of Cameroon to compensation.
25. See the Arbitral Award case, ICJ Rep 1960, 192
26. more recently, the Territorial Dispute case, ICJ Rep 1994, 6 involving Honduras/Nicaragua and Libya/Chad, respectively. On the implementation of these decisions and the role of external assistance
27. see JG Merrills, ‘The International Court of Justice and the Adjudication of Territorial and Boundary Disputes’, (2000) 13 LJIL 873, at 898–901.