You are here: Publications Archive World Court Digest
II. | Substantive International Law - Second Partv |
1. | TERRITORY OF STATES |
1.2. | Boundaries |
1.2.1. | Land Boundaries |
¤
Case Concerning the Land and Maritime
Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria
(Cameroon v. Nigeria: Equatorial Guinea Intervening)
Judgment of 10 October 2002
[p. ] 84. The Parties have devoted lengthy arguments to the difference between delimitation and demarcation and to the Courts power to carry out one or other of these operations. As the Court had occasion to state in the case concerning the Territorial Dispute (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya/Chad) (I.C.J. Reports 1994, p. 28, para. 56), the delimitation of a boundary consists in its definition, whereas the demarcation of a boundary, which presupposes its prior delimitation, consists of operations marking it out on the ground. In the present case, the Parties have acknowledged the existence and validity of the instruments whose purpose was to effect the delimitation between their respective territories; moreover, both Parties have insisted time and again that they are not asking the Court to carry out demarcation operations, for which they themselves will be responsible at a later stage. The Courts task is thus neither to effect a delimitation de novo of the boundary nor to demarcate it.
85. The task which Cameroon referred to
the Court in its Application is to specify definitively
(emphasis added by the Court) the course of the
land boundary as fixed by the relevant instruments
of delimitation. Since the land boundary has already
been delimited by various legal instruments, it is
indeed necessary, in order to specify its course definitively,
to confirm that those instruments are binding on the
Parties and are applicable. However, contrary to what
Cameroon appeared to be arguing at certain stages in
the proceedings, the Court cannot fulfil the task entrusted
to it in this case by limiting itself to such confirmation.
Thus, when the actual content of these instruments
is the subject of dispute between the Parties, the
Court, in order to specify the course of the boundary
in question definitively, is bound to examine them
more closely.
The dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria
over certain points on the land boundary between Lake
Chad and Bakassi is in reality simply a dispute over
the interpretation or application of particular provisions
of the instruments delimiting that boundary. It is
this dispute which the Court will now endeavour to
settle.