Application for Revision of the Judgment of 11 September 1992 in the Case concerning the Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Salvador/Honduras, Nicaragua intervening)(El Salvador v. Hondura

INTERNATIONAL COURT OF WSTICE

Peace Palace, 2517 KJ The Hague. Tel: +31 (0)70 302 23 23. Cables: Intercourt,
The Hague. Fax: +31 (0)70 364 99 28. Telex: 32323. E-mail address:

[email protected]. Internet address: http://www.icj-cij.org.

Press Release
Unofficial

No. 2003/23

25 July 2003

Application for Revision of the Judgment of 11 September 1992 in the Case concerning the
Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Salvador/Honduras: Nicaragua intervening)

(El Salvador v. Honduras)

The Court will hold public hearings from 8 to 12 September 2003

THE HAGUE, 25 July 2003. The five-Member Chamber, which the International Court of

Justice (ICJ), principal judicial organ of the United Nations, formed to deal with the case
conceming the Application for Revision of the Judgment of 11 September 1992 in the Case
conceming the Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Salvador/Honduras: Nicaragua
intervening) (El Salvadorv. Honduras) will hold public hearings from Monday 8 to Friday
12 September 2003 at the Peace Palace in The Hague, seat of the Court.

As provided for in Article 61 of the Statute, these public hearings will be devoted to the
question of the admissibility of the Application for revision filed by El Salvador.

History of the Proceedings

On 10 September 2002, El Salvador filed an Application for revlSlon 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 sectorf the land boundary between El Salvador and

Honduras".

El Salvador based 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 toligence."

In the Application El Salvador alleged that from the reasons given by the Chamber to
establish the boundary line in the sixth sector, the following could 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
Goasconin 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 Goascorân, purported to be
the courseof the river at the time of independence in 1821, was the chart and the -2-

descriptive report of the Gulf of Fonseca that Honduras presented and that were
supposedly drawn in 1796,as part of the expedition of the brigantine El Activo."

El Salvador claimed that it had obtained scientific, technical, and historical evidence which

"demonstrates that the old course of the Goasconin River debouched in the Gulf of Fonseca at the
Estero 'La Cutu', and that the river abruptly changed course in 1762". It contended that this
evidence, "which was not available to the Republic of El Salvador prior to the date of the
Judgment, can be classified, for purposesof the revision, as a new fact, with a character such that it

lays the case open to revision".

El Salvador further claimed 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 Activo have been discovered".

El Salvador concluded that:

"For purposes of this revtston, 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 value of the 'Carta Esférica'and the report of the
El Activo 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 of those
negotiations. In reality, far from reinforcing each other, the El Activo 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; (hl that the old riverbed was the

recognized boundary; and .(0 that this riverbed was north of the Bay of La Union, whose entire
coastline belonged to the Republicof El Salvador".

For ali these reasons, El Salvador requested 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 Article61 of the Statute of the Court; and

.(0 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 sectorof the land frontier between El Salvador and Honduras to
be as follows:

'Starting from the old mouth of the Goasconin river in the inlet
known as the La Cutu Estuary situated at latitude 13 o 22' 00" N and
longitude 87° 41' 25" W, the frontier follows the old course of the

Goascoran river for a distanceof 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 Goascorân river changed its
course.'" - 3-

By an Order of 27 November 2002, the Court formed a Chamber of three Members of the

Court together with two ad hoc judges chosen by the Parties, composed as follows:
President G. Guillaume; Judges F. Rezek, T. Buergenthal; Judges ad hoc S. Torres Bemârdez
(chosen by Honduras) and F. H. Paolillo (chosen by El Salvador).

It also fixed 1April2003 as the time-limit for the filing ofwritten observations by Honduras
on the admissibility of the Application for revision. Within the time-limit thus fixed, Honduras
filed its observations. In its conclusions Honduras requested the Chamber to declare El Salvador's

Application for revision inadmissible. The text of the written observations of Honduras is not yet
in the public domain.

NOTE TO THE PRESS

1. The public hearings will be held in the Great Hall of Justice of the Peace Palace in
The Hague, Netherlands. Mobile telephones and beepers are allowed in the courtroom
provided they are turned off or set on silent mode. Any offending deviee will be temporarily
retained.

2. Members of the Press will be entitled to attend the hearings on presentation of a press
card. The tables reserved for them are situated on the far left of the public entrance of the
courtroom.

3. Photographs and TV shots may be taken in the Great Hall of Justice for a few
minutes at the opening ofthe sittings. The Court's proceedings will be displayed live and in full
on a large TV screen in the Press Room, located on the ground floor of the Peace Palace (Room 5).

There, TV crews may connect their recording deviees directly onto the new video system of the
Court, but advance notice should be given to the Information Department. Joumalists wishing to
make sound recordings of the proceedings may connect their recording deviees directly onto the
Court's own audio system, also inthe Press Room.

4. Telephone caUs (collect calls only) may be made from the phone located in the Press

Room. Public telephones are located in the Post Office inthe basement of the Peace Palace.

5. The verbatim records of the public hearings will be published daily on the Court's website
(www.icj-cij.org) with an appropriate delay for on-line publication of translations.

6. Mr. Arthur Witteveen, First Secretary of the Court (Tel.: +31-70-302-2336), as weil as
Mrs. Laurence Blairon and Mr. Boris Heim, Information Officers (Tel.: +31-70-302-2337; e-mail

address: [email protected]), are availableto dealwith any Press requests.