INTERNATIONAL COURTOFJUSTICE
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Communiqué
unofficial
for immediate release
No. 2002/21
10 September 2002
El Salvador reguests a revision of the Judgment delivered on 11 September 1992 by the
Cham ber of the Court in the case concerning the Land, Island and Maritime Frontier
Dispute (El Salvador/Honduras: Nicaragua intervening)
THE HAGUE, 10 September 2002. Today El Salvador filed an Application for revision of
the Judgment delivered on 11 September 1992 by the Chamber of the Court in the case conceming
Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Salvador/Honduras: Nicaragua intervening).
El Salvador indicated that"the sole purpose of the application is to seek revision of the course of
the boundary decided by the Court for the sixth disputed sector of the land boundary between
El Salvador and Honduras".
El Salvador bases its Application for revision on Article 61 of the Statute of the Court, which
provides in its first paragraph that "an application for revision of a judgment may be made only
when it is based upon the discovery of sorne fact of such a nature as to be a decisive factor, which
fact was, when the judgment was given, unknown to the Court and also to the party claiming
revision, always provided that such ignorance was not due togligence."
In the Application El Salvador alleges that from the reasons given by the Chamber to
establish the boundary linen the sixth sector, the following can be inferred:
"(1) That a decisive factor in dismissing El Salvador's claim to a boundary along the
old and original riverbed was the lack of evidence of an avulsion of the
Goascoran River during the colonial period, and
(2) That a decisive factor that persuaded the Chamber to accept Honduras's claim to
a land boundary that follows the current course the Goascoran, purported to be
the course of the river at the time of independence in 1821, was the chart and the
descriptive reportf the Gulf of Fonseca that Honduras presented and that were
supposedly drawn in 1796, as part of the expedition ofthe brigantine El Activa."
El Salvador claims that it has obtained scientific, technical, and historical evidence which
"demonstrates that the old course of the Goascoran River debouched in the Gulf of Fonseca at the
Estero 'La Cutu', and that the river abruptly changed course in 1762". It contends that this
evidence, "which was not available to the Republic of El Salvador prior to the date of the
Judgment, can be classified, for purposesf the revision, as a new fact, with a character such that it
lays the case open to revision"; and that it "transforms hypothetical fact into juridical reality,
substantially alters the Judgment's assumptions, its ratio decidendi, and obliges the Chamber to
consider the consequences that the avulsion of the Goascoran River has for deciding the boundary
in the sixth disputed sector of the land boundary between El Salvador and Honduras". - 2 -
El Salvador further claims that "in the six months prior to making [its] application, [it]
obtained cartographie and documentary evidence demonstrating the unreliability of the documents
that form the backbone of the Chamber's ratio decidendi. A new chart and a new report from the
expedition of the brig El Activa have been discovered". El Salvador also observes that this new
discovery "calls to mind the case of the Farallones del Cosigüina, created by a huge eruption of
Cosigüina volcano in 1835", painting out that "[n]o logical explanation has been found for the fact
that this geographie accident, like others caused by the same eruption, did appear on charts drawn
up forty years before the volcano'splosion".
El Salvador concludes as follows: "the fact that there are several versions of the 'Carta
Esférica'and the report of the Gulf of Fonseca from the El Activa expedition, that there are
differences among them and the anachronisms they share, compromises the evidentiary value that
the Chamber attached to the documents that Honduras presented, essential in the Judgment.
Irrespectiveof the authenticity issue, there is no reason whatsoever to establish sorne hierarchy
among the various versions. No one 'Carta Esférica'or expedition report could be considered so
completely credible as to regard them, as the Chamber did, as the basis of a judgment founded
upon proven facts. For purposes of this revision, we have, then, a second new fact, whose
implications for the Judgment have to be considered once the Application for revision is admitted.
Because the evidentiary valueof the 'Carta Esférica'and the report of the El Activa expedition is
in question, the use of the Saco negotiations (1880-1884) for corroborative purposes becomes
worthless, a problem compounded by what the Republic of El Salvador considers to be the
Chamber's erroneous assessment ofthose negotiations. In reality, far from reinforcing each other,
the El Activa documents and the Saco documents contradict each other." According to El Salvador
the following assertions can be made on the basis of the scientific and historical evidence now
available:"W that the present-day course of the Goascoran River was not the course of the river in
1880-1884, much less in 1821; .(hlthat the old riverbed was the recognized boundary; Wndthat
this riverbed was northf the Bay of La Union, whose entire coastline belonged to the Republic of
El Salvador".
For ali these reasons, El Salvador requests the Court:
"W To proceed to form the Chamber that will hear the application for revision of the
Judgment, bearing in mind the terms that El Salvador and Honduras agreed upon
in the Special Agreement of 24 May 1986;
.(hl To declare the application of the Republic of El Salvador admissible on the
grounds of the existence of new facts of such a character as to lay the case open
to revision under Article of the Statute of the Court; and
W Once the application is admitted, to proceed to the revision of the Judgment of
11 September 1992, so that a new Judgment will determine the boundary line in
the sixth disputed sector the land frontier between El Salvador and Honduras to
be as follows:
'Starting from the old mouth of the Goascoran river in the inlet
known as the La Cutu Estuary situated at latitude 13o22' 00" N and
longitude 87° 41' 25" W, the frontier follows the old course of the
Goascoran river for a distancef 17,300meters as far as the place known
as the Rompici6n de los Amates situated at latitude 13°26' 29" N and
longitude 87° 43' 25" W, which is where the Goascoran river changed its
course."'
* - 3 -
This is the first time that an application has been made seeking revision of a Judgment
rendered by one ofthe Court's Chambers.
The full text of El Salvador's Application for revision will shortly be available on the
Court's website at the following address: http://www.icj-cij.org.
Information Department:
Mr. Arthur Th. Witteveen, First Secretary of the Court (+31 70 302 23 36)
Mrs. Laurence Blairon and Mr. Boris Heim, Information Officers (+31 70 302 23 37)
Email address: [email protected]
El Salvador requests a revision of the Judgment delivered on 11 September 1992 by the Chamber of the Court in the case concerning the Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Salvador/Honduras: Nicaragua intervening)