Petro celebrates the “great victory” in the ICJ over Nicaragua for the territorial dispute
Bogotá, Jul 13 (EFE).- The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, celebrated the “great victory” achieved in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that This Thursday it ruled that Nicaragua cannot extend its continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical miles that delimit its maritime border with Colombia.
“Great victory for Colombia in The Hague. The ICJ did not agree to Nicaragua’s claims to expand its continental shelf,” the president said on his Twitter account, who is expected to travel today to the San Andrés archipelago for this reason.
By 13 votes to 4, the Court rejected Nicaragua’s request, the last claim that the two countries had, and assured that the Central American nation has no right to an extended continental shelf within the baseline of nautical miles of the San Andrés archipelago. and Providencia, which belongs to Colombia.
“With this ruling, we hope to close the border dispute and focus on bringing sustainable development to our archipelago,” added Petro in his tweet, considering a dispute that has been in The Hague for more than a decade settled.
THE CASE OF THE ICJ
Nicaragua claimed in the UN court a continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from its Caribbean coast, but Colombia defends that the continental shelf of the San Andrés archipelago “unquestionably joins the continental shelf it has the Colombian Caribbean coast.
The dispute between Colombia and Nicaragua took a turn 10 years ago with an ICJ ruling that modified the boundaries between the two countries in the Caribbean Sea but, far from settling the issue, gave rise to new lawsuits in The Hague.
In the judgment of November 19, 2012, for a complaint filed in 2001 by the Central American country, Colombia maintained sovereignty over the archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina, as well as the keys that comprise it, and retained 12 miles of the water that surrounds these territories, but lost almost 75,000 square kilometers of sea to Nicaragua.
Faced with Colombia’s decision not to apply the ruling and declare an Integral Contiguous Zone to exercise its jurisdiction in the waters surrounding the islands and keys “as an archipelago and not as unconnected territories”, Nicaragua returned to the ICJ in September 2013. In On that occasion, he asked the Court to declare the “exact course” of the maritime border, “beyond” the 200-mile limits defined in the November 2012 judgment, as well as to demand that Colombia repeal laws “incompatible with the ruling” and the revocation of permits granted to Colombian fishing vessels that fish in disputed waters.
A request that the International Court of Justice denied this Thursday with a ruling against which there is no room for appeal.
(c) EFE Agency
