‘Adjust maritime boundary between Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana’
Ghana's neighbour, Cote d’Ivoire, wants the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in Hamburg, Germany to adjust the maritime boundary between it and Ghana in its favour.
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Cote d’Ivoire is alleging that Ghana has encroached on more than 15,000 square miles of its maritime boundary space and is accordingly praying the Special Chamber hearing the maritime boundary dispute between it and Ghana to adjust the line in its favour.
Advancing arguments for Cote d’Ivoire last Friday, one of the lawyers for Cote d’Ivoire, Professor Allain Pellet, told the tribunal that the court should reject Ghana’s claim of economic hardship should the tribunal rule in favour of Cote d’Ivoire.
He said Ghana’s argument of potential loss of thousands of jobs and several millions in revenue among other forms of hardship was untenable because Cote d’Ivoire had also suffered economically due to Ghana’s continuous exploitation of the area in dispute.
Describing Ghana’s claim of having a tacit agreement with Cote d’Ivoire for more than five decades as untenable, Prof. Pellet noted that the best, fairest and possible solution to the dispute was to adjust the line to 22.9 degrees on the bisector method.
Sir Michael Wood
Another lawyer for Cote d’Ivoire, Sir Michael Wood, told the tribunal there was no customary boundary beyond 200 miles between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.
He said the absence of an agreement and the existence of the dispute was proof that there were outstanding maritime boundary issues with Ghana.
According to him, Ghana had failed to show there was a tacit maritime boundary agreement between it and Cote d’Ivoire beyond 200 miles.
“There is a dispute of overlapping claims,” Sir Wood noted and further argued that Cote d’Ivoire was offering equitable solution to the benefit of other countries in the sub-region.
Prof. Alina Miron
Supporting Cote d’Ivoire’s position, Prof. Alina Miron said the parties had amply demonstrated there was no agreement and for that reason, Ghana’s insistence on a tacit agreement was ‘inoperative”.
She said Ghana had extended oil drilling into the disputed boundary and, therefore, prayed the tribunal to treat the disputed area as terra nullius (nobody’s land).
She prayed the tribunal to “rule and rule forcefully” to stop Ghana from further engaging in what she termed as “reckless appropriation of hydrocarbon resources,” in the disputed area.
Prof. Miron prayed the tribunal not to reward Ghana’s unilateral behaviour which was violating international law.
Mr Adama Kamara
Mr Adama Kamara, who also advanced further arguments on behalf of Cote d’Ivoire, accused Ghana of not obeying the tribunal’s April 25, 2015 orders.
He said Ghana had not cooperated with Cote d’Ivoire on activities in the disputed area as directed by the tribunal.
Mr Kamara’s presentation last Friday brought to a close the first round of arguments between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.
Ghana’s team
Ghana, led by the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Ms Gloria Afua Akuffo, ended its first round of arguments on February 7, 2017 and accordingly prayed the tribunal to uphold its more than five decades old tacit agreement with Cote d’Ivoire.
The second round of arguments began yesterday and will end on Thursday, February 16, 2017.
The panel
The President of the Special Chamber, constituted to deal with the dispute, Judge Boualem Bouguetaia, is presiding over the hearings.
Other members of the panel are Judges Rüdiger Wolfrum of Germany and Jin-Hyun Paik of the Republic of Korea.
Ad hoc judges Thomas Mensah and Ronny Abraham were selected by Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire respectively, according to ITLOS rules.
