World Court Digest

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III.	The International Court of Justice
2.	THE JURISDICTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE
2.4.	Jurisdiction on the Basis of a Special Agreement

¤ Case Concerning Maritime
Delimitation and Territorial
Question between Qatar and
Bahrain (Qatar v. Bahrain)
Judgment of 16 March 2001

[p. 77] 115. Since the 1939 decision did not constitute an international arbitral award, the Court will not need to consider Bahrain's argument concerning the Court's jurisdiction to examine the validity of arbitral awards. It will confine itself to noting that the Parties have undertaken

"to submit to the Court the whole of the dispute between them, as circumscribed by the text proposed by Bahrain to Qatar on 26 October 1988, and accepted by Qatar in December 1990, referred to in the 1990 Doha Minutes as the 'Bahraini formula'" (Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions between Qatar and Bahrain (Qatar v. Bahrain), Jurisdiction and Admissibility, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1994, pp. 126-127, para. 41, point 2).

116. The "Bahraini formula", as accepted by both Parties (see paragraph 67 above), is very comprehensive, since it authorizes the Parties to "request the Court to decide any matter of territorial right or other title or interest which may be a matter of difference between them". Consequently, the agreement between the Parties embraces all questions relating to the Hawar Islands, including the dispute concerning the 1939 British decision. Therefore the Court has jurisdiction to decide the various matters raised by Qatar in relation to the 1939 British decision.

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