Kenya has up to July 2015 to counter Somali’s claims over its territory.
The war-torn country has instituted proceedings against Kenya at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, with regard to “a dispute concerning maritime delimitation in the Indian Ocean”, the UN said in a statement.
Equipped with sketch maps, Somalia claims that Kenya has occupied its territory, and given it out to oil explorers. The area in dispute at the Kenya coast has about five exploration blocks already occupied by a number of companies, including America’s Anardako Petroleum Corporation, Eni S.P.A of Italy, and Total S.A of France.
“By an Order of 16 October 2014, (the President of the International Court of Justice) fixed 13 July 2015 and 27 May 2016 as the respective time-limits for the filing of a Memorial by the Federal Republic of Somalia and a Counter-Memorial by the Republic of Kenya,” says a communiqué from The Hague-based International Court of Justice.
“(He) made the Order having regard to the views of the Parties. The subsequent procedure has been reserved for further decision.”
Somalia rushed to the International Court following the breakdown of diplomatic talks with its neighbour. “None of these negotiation sessions have yielded agreement. Indeed, no meaningful progress toward agreement has been achieved at any of them,” it said in its plea to the UN.
It seeks that the territorial sea “should be a median line … since there are no special circumstances that would justify departure from such a line” and that, in the EEZ (exclusive economic zones) and continental shelf, the boundary “should be established according to the three-step process the Court has consistently employed in its application of Articles 74 and 83”.
“Kenya has acted unilaterally on the basis of its purported parallel boundary with Somalia, including in the territorial sea, to exploit both the living and non-living resources on the Somalia’s side of the provisionally drawn equidistant line. It has, for example, offered a number of petroleum exploration blocks that extend up to the northern limit of the parallel boundary it claims
On the other hand, Kenya Kenya’s current position on the maritime boundary is that it should be a straight line emanating from the joint where the boundaries of the two countries lock, and extending due east along the parallel of latitude on which the land boundary meet, through the full extent of the territorial sea, EEZ and continental shelf, including the continental shelf beyond 200 [nautical miles.
Somalia thus requests the Court “to determine, on the basis of international law, the complete course of the single maritime boundary dividing all the maritime areas appertaining to Somalia and to Kenya in the Indian Ocean, including the continental shelf beyond 200 [nautical miles]”. It further asks the Court “to determine the precise geographical co-ordinates of the single maritime boundary in the Indian Ocean”.
Somalia contends that both States “disagree about the location of the maritime boundary in the area where their maritime entitlements overlap”, and asserts that “diplomatic negotiations, in which their respective views have been fully exchanged, have failed to resolve this disagreement”.
According to Karanja Kibicho, the principal secretary, Foreign Affairs, “this claim by Somalia could make Kenya a landlocked country which may restrict our access to the high seas. And if the alterations adopt the proposal by Somalia then the island of Pemba will become part of Kenya”.
A series of meetings between February and March hardly bore fruits.
Article 282 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea provides that: “If the States Parties which are parties to a dispute concerning the interpretation or application of this Convention have agreed, through a general, regional or bilateral agreement or otherwise, that such dispute shall, at the request of any party to the dispute, be submitted to a procedure that entails a binding decision, that procedure shall apply in lieu of the procedures provided for in this Part, unless the parties to the dispute otherwise agree.
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