Latin America has shown an increment in litigation before the international
Court of Justice (ICJ) in cases related to territorial and maritime
delimitation disputes. The ICJ has been their ‘natural’ jurisdiction thanks to
broad competence clauses included in regional dispute settlement treaties
such as the Pact of Bogotá. As a consequence of this increased litigation and
the variety of results attained in judgements by the ICJ defining boundaries
and sovereign rights around Latin America, a strange behaviour has become
common place between the litigating States when they are not pleased with
the result. Several Latin American States have opposed their constitutions to
the ICJ judgements, invoking a particular constitutional clause, common in
the regional historic embrace of the uti possidetis iuris principle, known as
the ‘constitutional territory clause’.
