Dear Colleagues:
Bahrain-Qatar
On 16 March 2001, the International Court of Justice rendered its decision in
the long-pending dispute between Bahrain and Qatar. In addition to awarding
contested islands, the Court delimited a maritime boundary between the
parties. The full text of the ICJ judgment can be found at
http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/idocket/iqb/iqbjudgements/ijudgement_20010316/iq
b_ijudgement_20010316.htm.
I have copied the coordinates of the resulting boundary to the Boundary-Bits
page on our website (www.Boundaries.com). The judgment also includes an
illustrative map, the link to which is at the ICJ and our websites.
Philippines-Indonesia-Malaysia
On 15 March 2001, the Philippines filed an application with the International
Court to intervene in the Indonesia-Malaysia dispute over the sovereignty of
Ligitan and Sipadan Islands. According to the ICJ press release, the request
was prompted by the Philippines' claim to sovereignty over North Borneo. The
ICJ fixed 2 May as the limit for Indonesia and Malaysia to file written
observations about the Philippine application. [ICJ Press Release 2001/7 at
http://www.icj-cij.org. The actual Philippine application has not yet been
put on the ICJ website.]
Eritrea-Ethiopia
As a follow-up to my posting of 14 Feb 2001, the second part of the academic
paper on "Colonial Treaties ion the Context of the Current Ethio-Eritrean
Dispute and Settlement" was recently published by the Addis Tribune
[http://allafrica.com/stories/200102160519.html]. The anonymous article
concludes that colonial treaties and the OAU charter are of little relevance
to the dispute. The author makes the curious argument that unlike other
members of the OAU, Ethiopia predated the colonial era and, therefore, can
claim back territory that she gave away.
To all a Happy St. Patrick's Day -- May he ask his Boss to help resolve the
Northern Ireland boundary problem!
Dan Dzurek
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