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The Kenya/Somalia Maritime Boundary Delimitation Dispute

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Ethiopian Yearbook of International Law 2017

Part of the book series: Ethiopian Yearbook of International Law ((EtYIL,volume 2017))

Abstract

Somalia and Kenya have a land boundary in East Africa but have been unable to agree on where their maritime boundary should lie in the Indian Ocean. This dispute, which began years ago, is currently before the ICJ for resolution. This paper considers the current developments in this maritime boundary dispute discussing the prospects of the case whilst situating this within the broader context of delimitation practice in Africa.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Dispute Concerning Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v. Kenya), Memorial of Somalia, 13 July 2015, Annexes 74–78.

  2. 2.

    Ibid, paras 30–32.

  3. 3.

    (Adopted 10 December 1982, Entered into Force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 3.

  4. 4.

    ICJ, Maritime Delimitation in the Black Sea (Romania v. Ukraine), Judgment, (2009) ICJ Rep 61, paras 115–22.

  5. 5.

    Olorundami (2017).

  6. 6.

    Somalia’s Memorial, paras 33–34.

  7. 7.

    Ibid, para 34.

  8. 8.

    Ibid, annex 31. In the Black Sea case, the Court noted that these terms are interchangeable ‘since the method of delimitation is the same for both’. See para 116.

  9. 9.

    Ibid.

  10. 10.

    Ibid.

  11. 11.

    Ibid.

  12. 12.

    Office of the Attorney General and Department of Justice (2018).

  13. 13.

    Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the Republic of Kenya and the Transitional Federal Government of the Somali Republic to grant to each other No-Objection in respect of submissions on the Outer Limits of the Continental Shelf beyond 200 Nautical Miles to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, 7 April 2009.

  14. 14.

    At the Eleventh meeting of State Parties to UNCLOS, it was decided that since States only became acquainted with the documents concerning submissions to the CLCS (in accordance with paragraph 8 of Article 76 of UNCLOS) on 13 May 1999, and in view of the fact that the CLCS itself only just adopted its Scientific and Technical Guidelines on 13 May 1999, then for States for which the Convention had already come into force, the stipulation of ten years in Article 4 of Annex II of UNCLOS would be taken to commence on 13 May 1999. See Meeting of State Parties (2001) para a.

  15. 15.

    CLCS/40/Rev.1 (2008) Rules of Procedure of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, para 5(b), Annex 1.

  16. 16.

    ICJ, Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v. Kenya) Preliminary Objections, Judgment, (2017) paras 18, 19, 20 and 26.

  17. 17.

    Ibid, para 32.

  18. 18.

    Ibid, para 33.

  19. 19.

    Ibid, para 46.

  20. 20.

    Ibid, para 41.

  21. 21.

    The MOU is not numbered. However, the Court numbered the paragraphs for convenience. Paragraph 6 of the MOU provides that ‘The delimitation of maritime boundaries in the areas under dispute, including the delimitation of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles, shall be agreed between the two coastal States on the basis of international law after the Commission has concluded its examination of the separate submissions made by each of the two coastal States and made its recommendations to two coastal States concerning the establishment of the outer limits of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles’.

  22. 22.

    Somalia v. Kenya) Preliminary Objections, Judgment, para 91.

  23. 23.

    Ibid, para 92.

  24. 24.

    Ibid, para 96.

  25. 25.

    Ibid, para 98.

  26. 26.

    Ibid, para 64.

  27. 27.

    Ibid, para 120.

  28. 28.

    Ibid, para 120.

  29. 29.

    Ibid, para 129.

  30. 30.

    Ibid, para 130.

  31. 31.

    ICJ, Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v. Kenya) Order of 2 February 2017, 2.

  32. 32.

    ICJ, Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v. Kenya) Order of 2 February 2018, 2.

  33. 33.

    Black Sea case, para 106.

  34. 34.

    ICJ, Maritime Dispute between Nicaragua and Honduras in the Caribbean Sea (Nicaragua v. Honduras), Judgment, (2007) ICJ Rep 659, para 277

  35. 35.

    Ibid.

  36. 36.

    Even before the Black Sea case, the Court began to apply the equidistance/relevant circumstances method. An example may be found in the decision in Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions between Qatar and Bahrain (Qatar v. Bahrain), Judgment, (2001) ICJ Rep 40 and the Land and Maritime Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria (Cameroon v. Nigeria: Equatorial Guinea Intervening), Judgment, (2002) ICJ Rep 303.

  37. 37.

    See the cases of Territorial and Maritime Dispute (Nicaragua v. Colombia), Judgment, (2012) ICJ Rep 624 and Maritime Dispute (Peru v. Chile), Judgment, (2014) ICJ Rep 3, 62.

  38. 38.

    Guillaume (2001), p. 11.

  39. 39.

    Dispute Concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between Bangladesh and Myanmar in the Bay of Bengal (Bangladesh/Myanmar), Judgment, (2012) para 238.

  40. 40.

    ITLOS, Dispute Concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between Ghana and Côte D’Ivoire in the Atlantic Ocean (Ghana/Côte D’ivoire) Judgment, (2017) para 402.

  41. 41.

    Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between Guinea and Guinea-Bissau, Award (1985) RIAA, 146.

  42. 42.

    Fietta and Cleverly (2016), p. 279.

  43. 43.

    Nicaragua v. Colombia, para 191.

  44. 44.

    Schofield (2013), p. 238.

  45. 45.

    Evans (1991), p. 16; Antunes (2003), p. 271.

  46. 46.

    Cameroon v Nigeria, para 305-06.

  47. 47.

    Ghana/Cote D’Ivoire, para 480.

  48. 48.

    Müller-Jung (2016).

  49. 49.

    Dux (2011), p. 50.

  50. 50.

    Art 51.1, Treaty between the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe on the Joint Development of Petroleum and other Resources, in respect of Areas of the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Two States, 2001.

  51. 51.

    Mensah (2006), p. 150; Miyoshi (1999), p. 6.

  52. 52.

    Gao (2008), p. 60.

  53. 53.

    Miyoshi (1999), p. 6.

  54. 54.

    British Institute of International and Comparative Law (1989), p. 45; Shihata and Onorato (1996), p. 303.

  55. 55.

    MacLaren and James (2013), p. 144.

  56. 56.

    Office of the Attorney General and Department of Justice (2018) (emphasis in the original)

  57. 57.

    Gao (2008), p. 41; Ma (1984), p. 59.

  58. 58.

    See for example, the Treaty between Australia and the Republic of Indonesia on the Zone of Cooperation in an Area between the Indonesian Province of East Timor and Northern Australia [Timor Gap Treaty], 1989 and the 1979 Memorandum of Understanding between Malaysia and The Kingdom of Thailand on the Establishment of the Joint Authority for the Exploitation of the Resources of the Sea Bed in a Defined Area of the Continental Shelf of the Two Countries in the Gulf of Thailand.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Greenwich, London, UK

    Fayokemi Olorundami

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  1. Fayokemi Olorundami
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Correspondence to Fayokemi Olorundami .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Law, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United Kingdom

    Zeray Yihdego

  2. Leicester De Montfort School of Law, Faculty of Business and Law, De Montfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom

    Melaku Geboye Desta

  3. Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Martha Belete Hailu

  4. College of Law and Governance Studies, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Fikremarkos Merso

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Olorundami, F. (2018). The Kenya/Somalia Maritime Boundary Delimitation Dispute. In: Yihdego, Z., Desta, M., Hailu, M., Merso, F. (eds) Ethiopian Yearbook of International Law 2017. Ethiopian Yearbook of International Law, vol 2017. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90887-8_7

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