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Challenges in Applying Colonial Boundary Treaties to the Resolution of the Djibouti–Eritrea Border Dispute
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 April 2023
Abstract
Djibouti and Eritrea have been in conflict since June 2008 when their troops fought along the Djibouti–Eritrea border. The conflict revolves around the location of the border and sovereignty over the strategically located Doumeira Islands and adjacent reefs. In 2010 Qatar brokered a mediation agreement and began to implement it, but withdrew in 2017 without notifying Eritrea and without providing reasons to either country. The dispute raises a number of international law issues. This article focuses on the validity and application of three relevant colonial treaties (from 1900, 1901 and 1935) that defined the boundary, one of which (the 1935 Treaty) did not enter into force. Issues relevant to the determination of the borderline and sovereignty over the disputed islands and the unique challenges that may arise are discussed in light of the colonial treaties, relevant International Court of Justice jurisprudence and other international law principles, particularly uti possidetis juris.
Keywords
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London
Footnotes
*
LLB (Department of Law (DoL) of the College of Business and Social Sciences (CBSS), Eritrea) and currently an LLM student (Maastricht University) specializing in corporate and commercial law. This article was developed from a thesis prepared while an LLB student at the CBSS.
**
Lecturer in international law at the DoL, CBSS. He has an LLM specializing in international law from the School of Law of Xiamen University.
***
Assistant professor at the DoL, CBSS and former judge. He earned his LLM from Georgetown University as a Fulbright Scholar and his PhD from Maastricht University specializing in international trade law. He is also a member of the editorial team of the Journal of Eritrean Studies.
References
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5 Ibid.
6 Frank “Ripeness”, above at note 1.
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8 The four published agreements are: (1) a general declaration; (2) a treaty regulating Franco-Italian conflicts of interest in Africa (also known as the Treaty of Rome); (3) a special protocol on the status of the Italian minority in French-occupied Tunisia; and (4) a procès-verbal proposing a collective non-aggression pact of all the states in Europe bordering the Republic of Austria, then gravely threatened by Nazi Germany. A communiqué issued on the day the treaty was signed also referred to four other documents agreed between the two leaders. Watt, id at 69; Richardson, id at 41.
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11 As cited in MM Ricchiardi “Title to the Aouzou Strip: A legal and historical analysis” (1992) 17/2 Yale Journal of International Law 301 at 432 (note 775).
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22 This article does not go into the self-determination versus uti possidetis debate in general (ie whether the right to self-determination limits (is an exception to) the principle of uti possidetis) and specifically as it applies to Eritrea's independence from Ethiopia (ie how and whether Eritrea “inherited” its territory from Ethiopia).
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28 Mesfin “The Djibouti–Eritrea border dispute”, above at note 1 at 6.
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31 Mesfin “The Djibouti–Eritrea border dispute”, above at note 1.
32 Id; Report of the UN, above at note 3, para 17(j).
33 Mesfin “The Djibouti–Eritrea border dispute”, above at note 1.
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38 Security Council Press Statement (2008) (SC/9376-AFR/1720).
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41 Paragraph 4 of UNSC Resolution 1907 (23 December 2009) (S/Res/1907) (2009). A subsequent resolution, Resolution 2023 (2011), broadened the sanctions on Eritrea, and the UNSC continued to reaffirm the 2009 and 2011 sanctions yearly until 2017.
42 The mediation agreement obliged Qatar, inter alia, to deploy its own peacekeeping forces in order to monitor the disputed area until a final and mutually binding resolution of the conflict. See the text of the agreement, available at: <https://www.peaceagreements.org/masterdocument/721> (last accessed 10 February 2022).
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44 Eritrea Profile “Leaders of Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia hold tripartite meeting” (8 September 2018) 25/55 Eritrea Profile, available at: <http://50.7.16.234/hadas-eritrea/eritrea_profile_29012020.pdf> (last accessed 15 March 2022).
45 The text of Resolution 2444 (2018) is available at: <https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/sc13576.doc.htm> (last accessed 28 January 2022).
46 Report of the UN, above at note 3.
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48 ICJ judgment on Case Concerning the Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso v Republic of Mali), ICJ Rep 1986, para 24.
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50 ME Villiger Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (2009, Martinus Nijhoff), art 62(2)(a) at 775; S Árnadóttir “Termination of maritime boundaries due to a fundamental change of circumstances” (2016) 32/83 Utrecht Journal of International and European Law 94 at 101–102.
51 MN Shaw International Law (6th ed, 2008, Cambridge University Press) at 525–26; Crawford Brownlie's Principles, above at note 47 at 238–39.
52 ICJ, Burkina Faso v Mali, above at note 48 at paras 27, 63.
53 Shaw “Title, control, and closure?”, above at note 20 at 783–84.
54 M Ragazzi “Conference on Yugoslavia Arbitration Commission: Opinions on questions arising from the dissolution of Yugoslavia” (1992) 31/6 International Legal Materials 1488 at 1498, 1500; Shaw International Law, above at note 51 at 528–30.
55 ICJ judgment on Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Salvador v Honduras: Nicaragua intervening), ICJ Rep 1992, para 80; Shaw “Title, control, and closure?”, above at note 20 at 784.
56 ICJ, Burkina Faso v Mali, above at note 48, para 22.
57 Malanczuk Akehurst's Modern Introduction, above at note 49 at 162.
58 ICJ, El Salvador v Honduras, above at note 55, para 43.
59 ICJ, Burkina Faso v Mali, above at note 48, para 23.
60 In his separate opinion in Burkina Faso v Niger, Judge Yusuf stated that “[i]t is estimated that only one-fourth of the boundaries of African States had an intra-colonial administrative character. The majority of the boundaries of the newly-independent African States were inter-colonial boundaries established through treaties concluded between different colonial powers.” ICJ judgment on Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso v Niger), ICJ Rep 2013, separate opinion of Judge Yusuf, para 14.
61 ICJ, Burkina Faso v Mali, above at note 48, para 24, emphasis added.
62 See Burkina Faso v Niger, above at note 60, para 63.
63 As cited in RF Pietrowski, Jr “Guinea / Guinea-Bissau: Dispute concerning delimitation of the maritime boundary” (1986) 25/2 International Legal Materials 251 at 271 (citing para 40 of the award of the tribunal), emphasis added. The VCSS entered into force on 6 November 1996.
64 ICJ, Burkina Faso v Mali, above at note 48, paras 20–21.
65 Id, para 20.
66 See ICJ, El Salvador v Honduras, above at note 55.
67 Asmerom and Asmerom “A study”, above at note 9 at 51.
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69 Id, para 10.
70 Ibid.
71 Id, para 15.
72 Id, para 19.
73 Shaw, International Law, above at note 51. In Burkina Faso v Mali, the ICJ stated that one of the key elements of the 1964 OAU Resolution that distinguishes it from the Latin American uti possidetis of the 19th century is “the pre-eminence accorded to legal title over effective possession as a basis of sovereignty”; ICJ, Burkina Faso v Mali, above at note 48, para 23. See also MN Shaw Title to Territory in Africa: International Legal Issues (1986, Clarendon Press) at 120.
74 Separate opinion of Judge Yusuf, above at note 60, para 27.
75 Id, paras 45–47.
76 Id, para 46.
77 Report of the UN, above at note 3, para 60.
78 ICJ, Libya v Chad, above at note 12.
79 Statement by Sir Humphrey Waldock in the International Law Commission (1965) I Yearbook of the International Law Commission 260, para 67.
80 Villiger Commentary, above at note 50, art 16, 232.
81 Ricchiardi “Title to the Aouzou Strip”, above at note 11 at 432.
82 Ibid.
83 ICJ, Libya v Chad, above at note 12.
84 Id, para 35 ff, especially para 77(1).
85 Id, para 35.
86 Ibid. See also id, para 50.
87 Id, paras 36 and 49.
88 Id, para 50.
89 Id, para 57.
90 ICJ judgment on Fisheries Jurisdiction Case (United Kingdom v Iceland), ICJ Rep 1973, para 36.
91 Shaw International Law, above at note 51 at 950.
92 Id at 529 (note 234).
93 ICJ, Libya v Chad, above at note 12, para 73.
94 Eritrea v Yemen, Award of the Arbitral Tribunal in the First Stage of the Proceedings (Territorial Sovereignty and Scope of the Dispute) (3 October 1996), para 153.
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96 Id, paras 196, 212.
97 Id, para 197.
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103 Article 4 reads “the Convention applies only to treaties which are concluded by States after the entry into force of the present Convention with regard to such States”.
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105 Report of the UN, above at note 3, para 59.
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110 Over and above the demarcation of the border, there are other issues that are involved in this dispute which need to be addressed, viz.: (1) investigating the origins of the conflict; (2) examining whether the parties violated the law against the use of force; (3) respective responsibilities for casualties on persons and property; (4) the impact of the dispute on the local population along the border; and (5) protection and return of PoWs.