Non-Corrigé
Uncorrected
CR 2007/13
International Court Cour internationale
of Justice de Justice
THHEAGUE LAAYE
YEAR 2007
Public sitting
held on Thursday 22 March 2007, at 3 p.m., at the Peace Palace,
President Higgins presiding,
in the case concerning Maritime Delimitation between Nicaragua and Honduras in the
Caribbean Sea (Nicaragua v. Honduras)
________________
VERBATIM RECORD
________________
ANNÉE 2007
Audience publique
tenue le jeudi 22 mars 2007, à 15 heures, au Palais de la Paix,
sous la présidence de Mme Higgins, président,
en l’affaire de la Délimitation maritime entre le Nicaragua et le Honduras dans
la mer des Caraïbes (Nicaragua c. Honduras)
____________________
COMPTE RENDU
____________________ - 2 -
Present: Presieitgins
Ranjevaudges
Shi
Koroma
Parra-Aranguren
Buergenthal
Owada
Simma
Tomka
Abraham
Keith
Sepúlveda-Amor
Bennouna
Skotnikov
Judges ad hoc TorresBernárdez
Gaja
Couvgisrar
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ - 3 -
Présents : Mme Higgins,président
RanMjev.
Shi
Koroma
Parra-Aranguren
Buergenthal
Owada
Simma
Tomka
Abraham
Keith
Sepúlveda-Amor
Bennouna
Skjoteiskov,
BeTroresz.
jugesaja, ad hoc
Cgoefferr,
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ - 4 -
The Government of the Republic of Nicaragua is represented by:
H.E. Mr. Carlos José Argüello Gómez, Ambassa dor of the Republic of Nicaragua to the Kingdom
of the Netherlands,
as Agent, Counsel and Advocate;
H.E. Mr. Samuel Santos, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Nicaragua,
Mr.Ian Brownlie, C.B.E., Q.C., F.B.A., member of the English Bar, Member of the International
Law Commission, Emeritus Chichele Professor of Public International Law, University of
Oxford, member of the Institut de droit interna tional, Distinguished Fellow, All Souls College,
Oxford,
Mr. Alex Oude Elferink, Research Associate, Neth erlands Institute for the Law of the Sea, Utrecht
University,
Mr. Alain Pellet, Professor at the University of Paris X-Nanterre, Member and former Chairman of
the International Law Commission,
Mr. Antonio Remiro Brotóns, Professor of International Law, Universidad Autónoma, Madrid,
as Counsel and Advocates;
Mr.Robin Cleverly, M.A., DPhil, CGeol, F. G.S., Law of the Sea Consultant, Admiralty
Consultancy Services,
Mr. Dick Gent, Law of the Sea Consultant, Admiralty Consultancy Services,
as Scientific and Technical Advisers;
MsTania Elena Pacheco Blandino, First Secretary, Embassy of the Republic of Nicaragua in the
Kingdom of the Netherlands,
MsNadine Susani, Doctor of Public Law, Centre de droit international de Nanterre(CEDIN),
University of Paris X-Nanterre,
as Assistant Advisers;
Ms Gina Hodgson, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Ms Ana Mogorrón Huerta,
as Assistants.
The Government of the Republic of Honduras is represented by:
H.E. Mr. Max Velásquez Díaz, Ambassador of the Republic of Honduras to the French Republic,
H.E. Mr. Roberto Flores Bermúdez, Ambassador of the Republic of Honduras to the United States
of America,
as Agents; - 5 -
Le Gouvernement de la République du Nicaragua est représenté par :
S. Exc. M. Carlos José Arguëllo Gómez, ambassad eur de la République du Nicaragua auprès du
Royaume des Pays-Bas,
comme agent, conseil et avocat ;
S. Exc. M. Samuel Santos, ministre des affaires étrangères de la République du Nicaragua,
M. Ian Brownlie, C.B.E., Q.C., F.B.A., membre du barreau d’Angleterre, membre de la
Commission du droit international, professeur ém érite de droit international public (chaire
Chichele) à l’Université d’Oxford, membre de l’Institut de droit international,Distinguished
fellow au All Souls College d’Oxford,
M. Alex Oude Elferink, research associate à l’Institut néerlandais du droit de la mer de
l’Université d’Utrecht,
M. Alain Pellet, professeur à l’Université Paris X- Nanterre, membre et ancien président de la
Commission du droit international,
M. Antonio Remiro Brotóns, professeur de droit international à l’Universidad autónoma de Madrid,
comme conseils et avocats ;
M. Robin Cleverly, M.A., DPhil, CGeol, F.G.S., consultant en droit de la mer, Admiralty
Consultancy Services,
M. Dick Gent, consultant en droit de la mer, Admiralty Consultancy Services,
comme conseillers scientifiques et techniques ;
Mme Tania Elena Pacheco Blandino, premier secrétaire de l’ambassade de la République du
Nicaragua au Royaume des Pays-Bas,
Mme Nadine Susani, docteur en droit public, Centre de droit international de Nanterre (CEDIN),
Université de Paris X-Nanterre,
comme conseillers adjoints ;
Mme Gina Hodgson, ministère des affaires étrangères,
Mme Ana Mogorrón Huerta,
commaessistantes .
Le Gouvernement de la République du Honduras est représenté par :
S. Exc. M. Max Velásquez Díaz, ambassadeur de la République du Honduras auprès de la
République française,
S. Exc. M. Roberto Flores Bermúdez, ambassad eur de la République du Honduras auprès des
Etats-Unis d’Amérique,
comme agents ; - 6 -
H.E. Mr.Julio Rendón Barnica, Ambassador of the Republic of Honduras to the Kingdom of the
Netherlands,
as Co-Agent;
MrP.ierre-Marie Dupuy, Professor of Public International Law, University of Paris
(Panthéon-Assas), and the European University Institute in Florence,
Mr. Luis Ignacio Sánchez Rodríguez, Professor of International Law, Universidad Complutense de
Madrid,
Mr.Christopher Greenwood, C.M.G., Q.C., Profess or of International Law, London School of
Economics and Political Science,
Mr. Philippe Sands, Q.C., Professor of Law, University College London,
Mr.Jean-Pierre Quéneudec, professeur émérite de dr oit international à l’Université de ParisI
Panthéon-Sorbonne,
Mr. David A. Colson, LeBoeuf, Lamb, Green & MacRae, LL.P., Washington, D.C., member of the
California State Bar and District of Columbia Bar,
Mr. Carlos Jiménez Piernas, Professor of International Law, Universidad de Alcalá, Madrid,
Mr. Richard Meese, avocat à la Cour d’appel de Paris,
as Counsel and Advocates;
H.E. Mr. Milton Jiménez Puerto, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Honduras,
H.E. Mr.Eduardo Enrique Reina García, Deputy Mini ster for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of
Honduras,
H.E. Mr. Carlos López Contreras, Ambassador, National Counsellor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
H.E. Mr.Roberto Arita Quiñónez, Ambassador, Director of the Special Bureau on Sovereignty
Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
H.E. Mr. José Eduardo Martell Mejía, Ambassador of the Republic of Honduras to the Kingdom of
Spain,
H.E. Mr. Miguel Tosta Appel, Ambassador, Chairm an of the Honduran Demarcation Commission,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
H.E. MsPatricia Licona Cubero, Ambassador, Advi ser for Central American Integration Affairs,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
as Advisers;
Ms Anjolie Singh, Assistant, University College London, member of the Indian Bar,
Ms Adriana Fabra, Associate Professor of International Law, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, - 7 -
S. Exc. M. Julio Rendón Barnica, ambassadeur de la République du Honduras auprès du Royaume
des Pays-Bas,
comme coagent ;
M. Pierre-Marie Dupuy, professeur de droit in ternational public à l’Université de Paris
(Panthéon-Assas) et à l’Institut universitaire européen de Florence,
M. Luis Ignacio Sánchez Rodríguez, professeur de droit international à l’Université Complutense
de Madrid,
M. Christopher Greenwood, C.M.G., Q.C., professeur de droit international à la London School of
Economics and Political Sciences,
M. Philippe Sands, Q.C., professeur de droit au University College de Londres,
M. Jean-Pierre Quéneudec, professeur émérite de droit international à l’Université ParisI
(Panthéon-Sorbonne),
M. David A. Colson, LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, L.L.P., Washington, D.C., membre du
barreau de l’Etat de Californie et du barreau du district de Columbia,
M. Carlos Jiménez Piernas, professeur de droit international à l’Université de Alcalá (Madrid),
M. Richard Meese, avocat à la cour d’appel de Paris,
comme conseils et avocats ;
S. Exc. M. Milton Jiménez Puerto, ministre des affaires étrangères de la République du Honduras,
S. Exc. M. Eduardo Enrique Reina García, vice-mi nistre des affaires étrangères de la République
du Honduras,
S. Exc. M. Carlos López Contreras, ambassadeu r, conseiller national au ministère des affaires
étrangères,
S. Exc. M. Roberto Arita Quiñónez, ambassadeur, directeur du bureau spécial pour les affaires de
souveraineté du ministère des affaires étrangères,
S. Exc. M. José Eduardo Martell Mejía, ambass adeur de la République du Honduras auprès du
Royaume d’Espagne,
S. Exc. M. Miguel Tosta Appel, ambassadeur, président de la commission hondurienne de
démarcation du ministère des affaires étrangères,
S. Exc. Mme Patricia Licona Cubero, ambassad eur, conseiller pour les affaires d’intégration
d’Amérique Centrale du ministère des affaires étrangères,
comme conseillers ;
Mme Anjolie Singh, assistante au University College de Londres, membre du barreau indien,
Mme Adriana Fabra, professeur associé de dro it international à l’Université autonome de
Barcelone, - 8 -
Mr. Javier Quel López, Professor of International Law, Universidad del País Vasco,
Ms Gabriela Membreño, Assistant Adviser to the Minister for Foreign Affairs,
Mr. Sergio Acosta, Minister Counsellor, Embassy of the Republic of Honduras in the Kingdom of
the Netherlands,
as Assistant Advisers;
Mr. Scott Edmonds, Cartographer, International Mapping,
Mr. Thomas D. Frogh, Cartographer, International Mapping,
as Technical Advisers. - 9 -
M. Javier Quel López, professeur de droit international à l’Université du Pays basque,
Mme Gabriela Membreño, conseiller adjoint du ministre des affaires étrangères,
M. Sergio Acosta, ministre conseiller à l’amba ssade de la République du Honduras au Royaume
des Pays-Bas,
comme conseillers adjoints ;
M. Scott Edmonds, cartographe, International Mapping,
M. Thomas D. Frogh, cartographe, International Mapping,
comme conseillers techniques. - 10 -
The PRESIDENT: Please be seated. The Vice-President is unable to sit this afternoon. We
are here now to hear the reply of Honduras today and also tomorrow morning, and I now give the
floor to Professor Dupuy.
M. DUPUY : Merci, Madame le président.
1. Madame le président et Messieurs de la Cour, à ce stade de nos plaidoiries, comme j’ai
coutume de le dire, votre temps est précieux et le nôtre est compté. Un second tour doit avant tout
servir la cause de la justice internationale et c ontribuer dans toute la mesure du possible à éclairer
une dernière fois la Cour sur les positions respectiv es des parties. J’analyserai par conséquent, en
premier lieu, la stratégie générale du Nicaragua telle qu’elle a perdur é au cours de son dernier tour
de parole. Ensuite, sans répéter ce que j’ai déjà dit la semaine dernière, j’apporterai les corrections
nécessaires concernant le droit applicable.
I. La stratégie générale du Nicaragua au cours du second tour
2. La stratégie générale du Nicaragua au cours du second tour n’a pas fondamentalement
changé. Elle est simplement le reflet de ses faiblesses et de ses contradictions. Le Nicaragua sait
fort bien qu’il ne dispose d’aucun titre valide pour revendiquer la souveraineté sur les îles, îlots et
e
rochers au nord du 15 parallèle, et pas davantage de droits sur une quelconque zone maritime au
dessus de la «ligne traditionnelle». Il ne peut pas s’appuyer sur l’uti possidetis juris. Il ne peut pas
davantage invoquer des effectivités dont il n’a toujours pas pu apporter la moindre preuve
consistante. Il a par conséquent cherché à dissocier d’un bout à l’autre de ses plaidoiries, orales
comme écrites, la délimitation des espaces mariti mes de l’identification préalable des titres de
souveraineté sur les îles. Ceci a pu encore se vérifier lundi et mardi derniers.
3. Le Nicaragua a, il est vrai, fait une t oute dernière tentative, qu’il savait sans doute
désespérée, pour trouver enfin un titre substitutif en s’épargnant du même coup toute référence à
l’effectivité. Il a de plus tenté de pers uader la Cour que ces îles étaient non seulement
insignifiantes mais aussi indéterminées dans leur appellation sinon même dans leur localisation, se
permettant ainsi d’en revendiquer la possession sans même les désigner nommément dans ses
conclusions. Les éléments les plus importants de cette stratégie, à la fois habilement menée dans la - 11 -
forme mais dépourvue de pertinence dans le fond , seront réexaminés par mes collègues lors de ce
second tour. Je voudrais pour ma part m’attacher simplement à deux incohérences que les
dernières plaidoiries de nos talentueux contradicteurs n’ont pu dissimuler.
⎯ La première concerne la persis tance de la contradiction fondam entale concernant l’importance
des îles dans la présente affaire.
⎯ La seconde est liée à cette quête désespérée du titre juridique qui fait revenir le Nicaragua sur
l’uti possidetis pour la nier tout en revendiquant finalement son application.
A. Persistance de la contradiction nicaraguayenne quant au rôle à attribuer aux îles
4. D’une part, en effet, le Nicaragua reconnaissait lundi dernier, dès la plaidoirie du
professeur Alain Pellet que «le différend dont le Nicaragua a saisi la Cour est relatif à la
délimitation maritime» ; 1
Il reconnaissait encore que «le tracé de cette ligne doit respecter la souveraineté territoriale
appartenant respectivement à chacune des Parties sur les petits îlots (sic) se trouvant au nord du
2
parallèle 14° 59' 48"» . Pourtant, il ajoutait que «ceux-ci [les îlots] ne doivent avoir aucun effet sur
le tracé de la ligne ainsi conçue» (les italiques sont de nous). Impératif catégorique.
5. Par ailleurs, le lendemain, dans sa plaidoi rie, le professeur Brownlie, manifestant ainsi
qu’il refuse décidément de concilier attribution et délimitation, persistait dans l’étrange logique
suivante :
«Counsel for Honduras have . . . insisted that the issues of territorial sovereignty
must be decided before the question of maritime delimitation.
That is no doubt true, but [et je me permets d’insister sur ce «but»] the principal
question remains that of maritime delimitation…» 3
6. Enfin, et de façon peut-être plus éloquent e encore, l’ordre dans lequel M.l’agent de la
République du Nicaragua a énoncé les conclusions soumises par son pays à la Cour, parle en
quelque sorte de lui-même. Il a commencé par proposer de consacrer «the bisector of the lines
representing the coastal fronts of the two Parties as described in the pleadings…». Puis, d’une
1
CR 2007/11, p. 49, par. 51.
2
Ibid.
3CR 2007/12, p. 39, par. 5. - 12 -
façon semble-t-il totalement indépendante, il ajoute: « Without prejudice to the foregoing , the
Court is requested to decide the question of sovereignty over the islands and cays within the area in
dispute.»
Le Nicaragua, ainsi, persiste et signe. Il dé limite d’abord, il attribue ensuite, mais sans
même dire nommément de quelles îles il s’agit !
7. De plus, ce «Without prejudice to the foregoing» , avec tout le respect que l’on doit à ces
conclusions, n’est pas sans susciter la perplexité. Il semble décidément confirmer, si besoin en
4
était, comme, d’ailleurs incite à la faire la dernière plaidoirie du professeur Brownlie , que la
délimitation maritime est conçue par ce pays comme participan t d’une démarche totalement
autonome, sinon même indépendante de la question de l’attribution des îles.
8. Madame le président, le rideau est désormais tombé sur les plaidoiries du demandeur. Il a
5
soufflé ses dernières bougies. C’était, en quelque sorte, sa symphonie des adieux . Il n’aura plus,
désormais, l’occasion de préciser ses thèses. Or, il s’avère qu’il n’a décidément pas pu sortir de sa
contradiction fondamentale. Il commencer par mentionner in fine les îles dans son mémoire ; puis
il leur accorde une place croissante, dans sa réplique et dans ses plaidoiries du premier tour; il
annonce officiellement une modification de ses conc lusions en faveur de la requête de leur
appartenance au Nicaragua. Mais, finalement, ju squ’à la fin dernière, il ne leur accorde pas le
moindre rôle dans l’opération de délimitation. Comme on le redira plus loin, par contraste, la
6
position du Honduras est toujours restée fondamentalement différente .
B. La quête désespérée du titre de souveraineté sur les îles par le Nicaragua
9. La quête désespérée du titre de souveraineté sur les îles par le Nicaragua constitue la
seconde contradiction persistante qui se révèle lorsqu’il aborde la question du fondement des titres
qu’il pourrait alléguer pour soutenir sa demande d’attribution de la souveraineté sur les îles
concernées. Nous savons tout le mal que le Ni caragua, du moins dans cette affaire, pense de
l’uti possidetis. Le professeur Antonio Remiro Brotóns a encore rappelé mardi dernier qu’elle
serait inapplicable pour toute une série de raisons dont la dernière mentionnée serait que, «dans la
4CR 2007/12.
5
Joseph Haydn.
6Voir plus bas, conclusion de la présente conclusion. - 13 -
e
monarchie espagnole, surtout depuis le XVIII siècle, la mer constitue un espace unitaire sous la
juridiction de la marine, et non un espace fragme nté sous la juridiction des différentes entités
territoriales terrestres qui représentent la monarchie en Amérique» 7.
10. Voilà un enterrement royal, si j’ose dire, de ce principe tant décrié. Mais alors, comment
le réconcilier avec cette affirmation faite la veille par un autre con seil du Nicaragua ? M. Elferink,
lorsqu’il déclarait: «Nicaragua’s title to the cays dates from1821. There is no indication that
8
Nicaragua ever relinquished this claim.»
11. Qu’est-ce alors que ce titre de 1821 si, par ailleurs, M. Remiro Brotóns interdit qu’on le
fonde sur l’uti possidetis ? Ce second tour des plaidoiries n’est d’ailleurs qu’une nouvelle occasion
de confirmer les contradictions inhérentes à la thèse du Nicaragua puisque, dès le jeudi8mars,
M.Elferink avait prononcé des conclusions identiques 9, en écho, du reste, à ce qui avait déjà été
10
posé dans la réplique nicaraguayenne .
12. Il est vrai que son second tour a permis au demandeur de constater que sa revendication
de la souveraineté sur les îles au nord du para llèle 15 cherche désespérément un appui. Aucun
apport de la preuve d’une quelconq ue effectivité n’a davantage été apporté la semaine dernière
qu’auparavant, je l’avais déjà dit ; aucune preuve d’un exercice de souveraineté dans les semaines
ou les écrits précédents. Dès lors, comment conclure positivement cette quête désespérée d’un titre
justifiant la revendication finale d’îles au deme urant innomées dans les conclusions soumises à la
Cour ?
13. C’est alors que mon ami Alain Pellet, brave entre les braves, tente, non sans panache, une
dernière sortie. Rassemblant tout son courage, en un revers de manche, il br andit l’étendard de la
proximité, ou plutôt, nous disait-il lundi dernier, le critère de l’adjacence : «Le titre dont se prévaut
le Nicaragua n’est autre que le titre alternatif que le Honduras n’hésite pas à revendiquer : celui de
l’adjacence», laquelle, nous affirme-t-il un peu pl us loin, parlerait «en faveur du Nicaragua» 11. Il
est vrai que mon ami sait non seulement faire t ourner les côtes pertinen tes comme d’autres font
7
CR 2007/12, p. 13, par. 13.
8
CR 2007/11, p. 65, par. 38.
9 CR 2007/4, p. 13, par. 79.
10 RN, vol. I, p. 50, note de bas de page 130.
11 CR 2007/11, p. 40, par. 25. - 14 -
tourner les tables, en infligeant en l’occurren ce une rotation de 37degrés aux parallèles et aux
12
méridiens . Il sait aussi faire parler l’adjacence, selon, il est vrai, une perception tout aussi
orientée. Mais le problème n’est au demeurant pas là. Foin de dérive des continents, de rotation
des côtes ou de proximités habilement concertées. Il se trouve qu’en droit, l’adjacence n’est pas à
elle seule un critère pertinent p our attribuer un titre. Nous touchons ici à la question du droit
applicable que je vais aborder dans ma seconde partie.
II. Le droit applicable
14. Deux points ici, parce qu’il faut faire un tri, seront brièvement abordés, étant entendu que
le Honduras n’approuve pas pour autant l’ensemb le des assertions incorrectes que nous n’aurons
pas ici le temps de redresser :
⎯ en premier lieu, la non-pertinence du critère de l’adjacence ;
⎯ en second lieu, l’inanité de la tentative de faire l’économie des preuves de l’effectivité dans la
démonstration d’un titre territorial.
A. La non-pertinence du critère de l’adjacence
15. La non-pertinence du critère de l’adjacence est double. Elle est vérifiée d’une façon
générale dans le droit internationa l relatif à l’attribution des territoires contestés. Elle est d’autant
moins invocable dans le contexte de la présen te affaire, en référence à l’application de
l’uti possidetis.
La première affirmation nous fait revenir à l’île de Palmas, décidément presque aussi
inévitable lorsqu’on parle de souveraineté insulair e que le sont l’usine de Chorzów lorsqu’on
aborde la responsabilité ou le Lotus lorsqu’on aborde, entre autres, la théorie des lacunes du droit.
Incontournables lieux de mémoire du droit interna tional. Dans son célèbre arbitrage, donc,
Max Huber rejetait sans ambiguïté la théorie de la contiguïté comme titre de souveraineté ; et ceci,
notamment, pour deux raisons: l’incertitude quant à l’existence juridique de ce prétendu
«principe», d’abord, le manque de précision auquel son application aboutirait, ensuite 13.
12
Ibid., par 27.
13RSA, vol. II, p. 854-855. - 15 -
Quant à elle, il est vrai que la sentence rendue dans l’affaire de l’île d’Aves était un peu
14
moins négative puisqu’elle plaçait la con tiguïté au rang des titres imparfaits ou «inchoate titles» .
Cependant, dans l’affaire entre El Salvador et le Honduras devant une chambre de cette Cour, s’il
est exact que celle-ci s’est référée au critère de dépendance à propos de Meanguera, ce n’est pas sur
la base de ce critère que la souveraineté a ét é reconnue à ElSalvador. C’est sur celui d’une
revendication salvadorienne de l’île, effectuée en 1854, suivie par une possession effective par ce
dernier Etat jusqu’à l’époque contemporaine, laquelle a été confortée par l’acquiescement du
Honduras à cette occupation ( Différend frontalier terrestre, insulaire et maritime
(El Salvador/Honduras) ; Nicaragua (intervenant), C.I.J. Recueil 1992, p. 579, par. 367).
16. En définitive, comme le démontrent du reste de nombreux exemples, tel celui des îles
Anglo-Normandes, qui sont britanniques quoique pl us proches des côtes françaises, ou celui de
l’île Martin Garcia, sous juri diction argentine bien que plus proche des côtes uruguayennes,
l’adjacence ou contiguïté est en elle-même insuffisan te pour constituer un titre en faveur de l’Etat
le plus proche, par manque de fiabilité tant du droit que du fait.
Encore moins pourrait-on suppléer l’absence de titre par la référence à l’adjacence, comme
le fait pourtant mon ami le professeur Pellet, lorsqu’on est par ailleurs dépourvu d’effectivité.
Votre Cour n’a pas dit autre chose, dans son avis consultatif relatif au Sahara occidental,
lorsqu’elle affirmait à propos de la rareté des preuves quant à un exer cice effectif d’autorité : «On
ne peut pas remédier à cette difficulté en faisant appel à l’argument de l’un ité ou de la contiguïté
géographique.» (Sahara occidental, avis consultatif, C.I.J. Recueil 1975, p. 43, par. 92.)
17. En l’occurrence, au demeurant, l’adjacen ce des côtes concernées à la côte du Nicaragua,
à moins qu’on lui inflige une rotation douloureuse d es côtes de 37° ou plus, ne paraît pas, c’est
vraiment le moins qu’on puisse dire, supérieure à celle qui existe quant à la position de ces îles
vis-à-vis des côtes du Honduras.
En outre, le professeur Pellet se référait à l’adjacence en puisant sa mention dans deux traités
conclus par la Couronne d’Espagne avec chac un des pays en litige au cours du XIX e siècle. Or,
comme l’expliquera plus en détail le professeur Sánc hez Rodríguez, ces traités ne faisaient que se
14De Lapradelle et Politis,Recueil des arbitrages internationauxParis, éditions internationales, 1905, t.II,
p. 413. - 16 -
référer, en une formule du reste standardisée, à la façon dont les îles avaient été attribuées, à la date
de l’indépendance, c’est-à-dire en 1821, entr e les anciennes provinces et circonscriptions
administratives de l’époque coloniale. Ces traités, en d’autres termes, ne contredisaient en rien
l’application de l’uti possidetis ; tout au contraire, ils l’utilisaient et, donc, la confortaient.
B. Le jeu respectif des titres et de l’effectivité dans le présent litige
18. Le jeu respectif des titres et de l’effectiv ité dans le présent litige, qui est le second point
relatif au droit applicable, a été évoqué par le pr ofesseur Pellet au cours de sa plaidoirie de lundi
dernier. C’est ici lui qui parle et non pas vous :
«⎯ lorsqu’un Etat peut se prévaloir d’un titre juridique sur un territoire, celui-ci
prévaut sur toute autre interprétation ;
⎯ dans ce cas, [et là il vous citait lui-même], «il y a lieu de préférer le titulaire du
titre»».
On voit ici l’habileté de la manŒuvre, car il faut bien dire que c’en est une, au sens tactique
s’entend. Regardez bien, nous dit-il: Je n’ai pas d’ effectivité, rien dans le s mains, rien dans les
poches, mais, qu’importe ! Je n’en ai pas besoin car j’avais une carte dans la manche, c’est un titre
sur les îles et ce titre m’est fourni par l’adjacence. Et le tour est ainsi joué…
19. Pas mal, en effet! Sauf, Madame et M essieurs les juges, qu’il y a un «truc», et même
plusieurs, dans ce joli tour . D’abord, nous l’avons vu ⎯et ce n’est pas un petit détail ⎯ il n’y
avait rien de caché dans sa manche ! L’adjacence, en effet, ne peut fournir un titre. Ensuite, ce qui
est en cause, c’est l’exacte appréciation par la juri sprudence du rôle de l’effectivité par rapport au
titre. Et alors, toute la jurisprudence interna tionale se réfère désormais à ce que votre Chambre
avait dit dans l’affaire du Différend frontalier (Burkina Faso/République du Mali) . Cette
jurisprudence fut ensuite reprise notamment pa r la Chambre constituée pour juger de l’affaire
opposant ElSalvador au Honduras ( C.I.J. Recueil1992, p.398, par.61). Je cite ce passage
désormais célèbre, dans lequel la Chambre abordait en 1986 le rôle complexe des effectivités :
«[P]lusieurs éventualités doivent être distinguées. Dans le cas où le fait
correspond exactement au droit, où une administration effective s’ajoute à l’ uti
possidetis, l’«effectivité» n’intervient en réalité que pour confirmer l’exercice du droit
né d’un titre juridique. Dans le cas où le fait ne correspond pas au droit, où le
territoire objet du différend est administré effectivement par un Etat autre que celui
qui possède le titre juridique, il y a lieu de préférer le titulaire du titre. Dans
l’éventualité ou l’«effectivité» ne coexis te avec aucun titre juridique, elle doit - 17 -
inévitablement être prise en considération.» ( Différend frontalier (Burkina
Faso/République du Mali), C.I.J. Recueil 1986, p. 586-587, par. 63)
20. Il est alors particulièrement intéressant de comparer la situation respective du Honduras
et celle du Nicaragua à l’égard des îles situées au nord du parallèle 15 au regard de la critériologie
ainsi établie par la Cour. Le Honduras, quant à lui, possédait bel et bien un titre originel, celui
hérité de l’uti possidetis. Il a manifesté à sa suite une effectivité suffisante sur les îles eu égard à
leurs caractéristiques respectives. Nous sommes dans le premier des trois cas énoncés par la
Chambre. Celui dans lequel les effectivités viennent consolider le titre historique.
En revanche, le Nicaragua n’est pas dans le premier cas, car il n’a toujours pas pu vous
démontrer l’existence de son titre initial quoi que pui sse en dire M. Elferink. Mais il n’est pas non
plus dans le second, car il n’a pas davantage d’e ffectivité, ni même dans le troisième, puisqu’un
autre Etat que lui possède un titre et qu’il l’a par la suite effectivement exercé.
C’est là, Madame le président, tout le malheu r du Nicaragua. Il n’est nulle part. Il n’est
même pas, si j’ose dire , sur Pulau Ligitan ou Pulau Sipadan, puisque le Honduras a un titre et que
le Nicaragua n’en a pas et que de toute façon ce dernier ne peut mettre en balance aucun «display
of sovereignty» qui puisse se mesurer à celui qu ’a exercé et qu’exerce aujourd’hui encore le
Honduras le Honduras.
Il n’est nulle part, le Nicaragua, et, au fond, il le sait et il le savait depuis le début. C’est bien
pour cela qu’il a voulu opter pour une délimitation maritime qui ne prenne pas d’abord en
considération les îles mais qui les récupère après s’être taillé, à coups de «bisector», un morceau de
mer à partir de côtes préalablement rabotées.
Conclusion
21. Je conclus, Madame le président, en vous rappelant brièvement, quelle a toujours été, par
opposition, l’attitude de la République du Honduras à l’égard de la délimitation.
22. Pour sa part, le Honduras est toujours resté fidèle à la même conception, depuis le début
de ses plaidoiries, écrites et orales. La détermin ation de la souveraineté sur les îles constitue un
préalable inévitable à la délimitation. Elle pass e, dans le cas présent, par la vérification du titre
juridique initial qu’il possède sur ces îles et su r les espaces maritimes au nord du parallèle15 à
raison de l’application de l’uti possidetis, mais confirmée par l’exercice effectif de sa souveraineté. - 18 -
Ces îles, contrairement à ce que M.Elferink a voulu vous démontrer, sont tout à fait bien
identifiées, en tout cas par le Honduras, quelle que puisse être, par ailleurs, la diversité de leurs
appellations géographiques. Il s’agit, comme je le disais moi-même la semaine dernière à propos
15
des trois questions que je posais à leur égard , de Bobel Cay, South Cay, Savanna Cay et
PortRoyal Cay, ainsi que d’un certain nombre d’autres reliefs et formations placés au nord du
parallèle 15.
23. Lorsqu’on en vient à la méthode de délim itation, et sans répéter ici ce que je vous disais
16
mercredi dernier , ces îles doivent être prises en compte, avec tous les éléments qui les
caractérisent. Le résultat définitif est alors à déte rminer à raison de son caractère équitable. Ainsi,
en droit, et cela est important, je crois, Madame le président, la prise en compte initiale des îles est
une chose, leur effet définitif sur la ligne divisoir e en est une autre. Les îles, en d’autres termes,
peuvent avoir été prises en compte dans la mise en Œuvre de la méthode, mais ne pas, finalement,
produire un plein effet sur la ligne définitivement re tenue si l’incidence qu’elles ont sur cette ligne
était jugée excessive.
17
24. Ainsi, comme vous l’a montré MColson vendredi dernier , les îles pertinentes sont
dûment prises en considération dans la ligne provisionnelle d’équidistance que le Honduras a
retenue. Cette ligne est bâtie en leur faisant produire l’effet qui le ur revient, en application des
articles pertinents de la convention de Monteg o Bay à commencer par son article15, puisqu’il
s’agit ici pour plus des deux tiers, de tracer la délimitation entre des mers territoriales.
25. C’est néanmoins à raison du caractère équitable et très généreusement pondérateur,
j’insiste, de la «ligne traditionnelle» que cette de rnière est finalement retenue, validée, sans donner
à ces îles leur plein effet. A la fois constituée pa r un titre, consolidée par la pratique des Parties
mais, en même temps, très bénéfi que au Nicaragua par rapport à l’ équidistance «pure et dure» si
j’ose dire, la «ligne traditionnelle» est ainsi finale ment retenue comme ayant pris en considération
les îles, sans pour autant leur faire produire que lque effet qui pourrait éventuellement paraître
inéquitable.
15CR 2007/8, p. 42, par. 20.
16
Ibid., p. 52, par. 57 et suiv.
17CR 2007/9. - 19 -
26. Comme vous le montrera demain Jean-Pie rre Quéneudec, il y a cependant d’autres
moyens de travailler, si j’ose dire, autour de la ligne traditionnelle pour parvenir à un résultat
équitable.
Cette ligne traditionnelle est certes un axe, un vecteur essentiel et, en définitive, elle
constitue la moyenne raisonnable entre toutes les cons idérations d’équité. Mais ce n’est pas pour
autant un dogme absolument intangible. Le respect de la «ligne traditionnelle» n’exclut pas, en
d’autres termes, que certaines pondérations ou ajuste ments puissent lui être apportés, notamment
par sa conjugaison avec des éléments tirés d’une autr e ligne, d’équidistance celle-là, qu’il s’agisse
de la ligne d’équidistance qui vous a été montré e la semaine dernière ou de celle qui vous sera
expliquée demain.
27. Madame le président, je terminais ma précédente plaidoirie par ce qui pouvait passer
pour un éloge de la tradition. La tradition, pour tant, n’exclut nullement l’imagination, dont
Jean Giraudoux disait que le droit constitue la meilleure école 18.
A condition, bien sûr, que toute innovation soit pondérée, et que la souveraineté comme la
stabilité soient dûment respectées.
Je vous remercie, Madame le président, et je vous prierais de bien vouloir passer la parole à
mon collègue et ami le professeur Greenwood.
The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Professor Dupuy. We now call Professor Greenwood.
Mr. GREENWOOD:
1. Madam President, Members of the Court, to day I shall reply to Nicaragua’s arguments of
earlier this week regarding the law on title to the islands. As ProfessorDupuy has just
demonstrated, Nicaragua has adopted throughout this case a strategy of some subtlety, seeking to
blur the distinction between the law applicable to the dispute over the islands and the law
applicable to the maritime boundary. But it cannot escape the fact that they are separate, distinct
bodies of law. Nor can it avoid the fact that the question of sovereignty over the islands has to be
determined before the delimitation of the maritime boundary can be addressed.
18
Jean Giraudoux, La guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu. - 20 -
2. The law on territorial sovereignty is well established. As ProfessorPellet told the Court
on Monday, the rich jurisprudence on this subject constitutes “un florilège irremplaçable des règles
19
applicables en matière de preuve de la souveraineté territoriale” . But it is clear from Nicaragua’s
pleadings that there are serious and substantial differences between the Parties regarding both the
detail of that florilège and its application to the facts of the case.
3. I want to examine two aspects of those differences ⎯ the argument over the critical date
and the relationship between original title and effectivités. Professor Sánchez Rodríguez will then
respond to Nicaragua’s arguments regarding the application of uti possidetis and ProfessorSands
will deal with the evidence of effectivités.
I. The critical date
4. On Monday, Professor Pellet rightly reminded us that the term “critical date” is used in
20
two different senses . In its strict, technical sense, the critical date is ⎯ as the Court said in the
Pulau Sipadan case ⎯ “the date on which the dispute between the Parties crystallized”,
(Sovereignty over Pulau Ligitan and Pulau Sipadan (Indonesia/Malaysia) Judgment, I.C.J. Reports
2002, p.682, para. 135). But the term is also used in a less technical way to identify the point in
time at which a certain issue falls to be decided. And it was in that latter sense that the Chamber in
the 1992 Judgment (I.C.J. Reports 1992, p. 401, para. 67), spoke of th e critical date with regard to
the application of uti possidetis being 1821 ⎯ the date of independence from Spain.
5. But if Professor Pellet was right to remind us of the two different senses of the term
“critical date”, we on this side of the Court were su rprised to hear him say that the critical date, in
the non-technical sense, might be, not 1821 as regards uti possidetis, but 1906, or even 1960, on the
basis that the 1906 Award, as subsequently upheld by this Court, somehow superseded the earlier
21
basis of title . Now, it is of course the case that the Ch amber in the 1992 Judgment stated that the
date of an arbitral award was the critical date in respect of matters settled by that award ( I.C.J.
Reports 1992, p. 401, para. 67). But it is irrelevant in respect of territorial issues not determined by
the award. Until Monday, we had understood Nicar agua’s position to be that the 1906 Award was
19
CR 2007/11, p. 38, para. 21.
20
CR 2007/11, p. 45, paras. 37-39.
21CR 2007/11, pp. 44-45, paras. 36-37. - 21 -
irrelevant to title to the islands. Professor Pellet’s comment affords a brief insight into Nicaragua’s
uncertainty about that aspect of its case and its realization that the 1906 Award may have more of a
bearing on this question than it has so far cared to admit.
6. But the real difference between the Parti es lies in the application of the critical date ⎯ in
its technical sense ⎯ to the evidence of effectivités with respect to the islands. Here, Nicaragua has
22
stuck vigorously to its argument that the 1977 exchange of letters, in which Nicaragua proposed
and Honduras accepted 2, negotiations regarding a definitive maritime delimitation constituted the
24
critical date for the dispute rega rding sovereignty over the islands . Members of the Court will
have noticed that Nicaragua did not suggest any alternative critical date ⎯ 1977 is their only
candidate.
7. In its first round of pleading, Honduras had challenged this date on the ground that the
1977 letters made no mention of the islands. Professor Pellet dismissed this argument as
25
excessively subtle . Well, Madam President, it is hardly that! The dispute over the islands and the
dispute over the maritime boundary are governed by two different bodies of law. In reality, there is
a fundamental distinction between what are two separate disputes. But Professor Pellet dismissed
that distinction on the basis that “il est évid emment absurde de dissocier la question de la
souveraineté sur les îlots . . . de celle de la delimitation maritime” 26.
8. Well, is it absurd, Madam President? Does an offer to enter into negotiations about a
maritime boundary automatically embrace the crysta llization of a dispute about sovereignty over
land? The Court did not seem to think so in the Pulau Sipadan case, Madam President. The
critical date for the dispute over the islands in th at case was held to be 1969, a time when the
parties ⎯ Indonesia and Malaysia ⎯ were actually in the middle of talks regarding their maritime
boundary. In other words, they had gone far beyond the mere suggesti on of future conversations,
which is all that the 1977 letters represent. But the dispute over the islands was not held to have
crystallized as an automatic consequence of openi ng talks about the maritime boundary. It was
22MN, Vol. II, p. 29.
23
MN, Vol. II, p. 30.
24
CR 2007/11, p. 45, para. 38 (Pellet).
25CR 2007/11, p. 46, para. 41.
26Ibid. - 22 -
held to have crystallized because, after those talks had commenced, the two States made express
and competing claims regarding sovereignty to the two islands. The distinction between the
dispute over the two small islands, whose location gave them an impact on the maritime boundary,
and the dispute over the maritime boundary itself, was clearly recognized by the two States and
clearly recognized by the Court ( I.C.J. Reports 2002, p.642, para.31 and p.679, para.128),
however absurd it may seem to Professor Pellet.
9. Moreover, Madam President, Nicaragua’s approach ignores the basic concept of the
critical date as the moment when the dispute crystallizes. There cannot be a critical date unless,
first, there is a “dispute” and, secondly, that dispute has in some sense “crystallized” . The standard
definition of a dispute, often repeated by the Court, is that contained in the Mavrommatis Palestine
Concessions case, namely “a disagreement on a point of law or fact, a conflict of legal views or of
interests” (Judgment No. 2, 1924, P.C.I.J., Series A, No. 2, p. 11).
10. And the Court has repeatedly said that a dis pute does not exist, still less can it be said to
have crystallized, just because one State says so. To quote from the South West Africa cases
decision in 1962:
“[I]t is not sufficient for one party to a contentious case to assert that a dispute
exists with the other party. A mere asserti on is not sufficient to prove the existence of
a dispute any more than a mere denial of the existence of the dispute proves its
non-existence. Nor is it adequate to show that the interests of the two parties to such a
case are in conflict. It must be shown that the claim of one party is positively opposed
by the other.” (I.C.J. Reports 1962, p. 328.)
11. Well, where, in the 1977 letters, is there a claim of one party to the islands which is
positively opposed by the other? The islands are not mentioned by either Government. In fact,
there is a particular irony in Professor Pellet making that argument, because only a little earlier in
his own speech he had sought to persuade the Court that Honduras had not even claimed the islands
in 1977. He invoked the absence of any mention of the islands in the Honduran letter of May 1977
as proof that Honduras did not make a claim until later 27!
12. Now, there is, of course, a very good reason why Honduras did not mention the islands in
1977. The two States were talking about something different ⎯ the delimitation of a maritime
boundary. And Professor Pellet is wrong in sayin g that Honduras did not claim the islands until
27
CR 2007/11, p. 37, para. 19. - 23 -
much later. But his comment that no claim to them was advanced by either side in the 1977 letters
is fatal to his argument about the critical date. How can Nicaragua at one and the same time argue
that a dispute regarding the islands crystallized in 1977, but that one of the Parties never even
advanced a claim to them until many years later. It is not so much crystallization as the crystal ball
that we are gazing into there. Moreover, Mada m President, Nicaragua’s signature of the Central
American Free Trade Agreement in April 1998 is also inconsistent with its argument about the
critical date. Counsel will return later today to the question of this treaty. Suffice it to say for now
that the text to which Nicaragua’s Pr esident put his signature on 16April 1998 did contain an
annex ⎯ incorporated as a provision of that treaty ⎯ which expressly defined Honduran territory
as including Palo de Campeche and Media Luna. No w, irrespective of what subsequently became
of that treaty, the fact of that signature by th e Head of State cannot be reconciled with the notion
that a dispute regarding sovereignty over the islands had crystallized more than 20 years earlier.
13. Madam President, there is another concer n. A moment’s reflection shows that any
suggestion that accepting an invitation to talks about a maritime boundary operates to crystallize an
unidentified ⎯ unmentioned ⎯ dispute over land territory which might affect that boundary is
deeply troubling and promises to have a seriously d estabilizing effect. It implies that whenever a
State takes a position about, for example, the contin ental shelf in a particular area it may also be
crystallizing a dispute about sovereignty over islands and perhaps about mainland territory as well.
One has only to think of the possible effects in, for example, the Aegean or the South China Sea, to
realize that this cannot be right.
14. Before I leave the issue of the critical date, I must set the record straight on one other
matter. Professor Pellet sought to ridicule Honduras’ s own attempts to identify the critical date in
respect of the dispute over the islands by sugg esting that Honduran counsel had offered a melange
28
of different dates to the Court “aussi variées que fantaisistes” ⎯ and he tells us that he lacks a
theatrical tradition! The footnotes to his speech then seek to make mischief by attributing different
dates to Professor Piernas, Professor Sands, Mr. Colson and myself. There is nothing in this at all.
If one examines each of the passages cited, it is apparent that references to possible dates earlier
28
CR 2007/11, p. 48, para. 47 and footnotes 66-70. - 24 -
than March 2001 are all to dates when the maritime dispute might have crystallized. The passage
from my own speech also makes clear that I accepted 21 March 2001 ⎯ the date of deposit of the
Nicaraguan Memorial ⎯ as the critical date for the islands’ dispute.
15. Now, since that is the Honduran positi on and Nicaragua has offered only the obviously
unacceptable ⎯ almost unarguable ⎯ date of May 1977, I respectfully suggest that the critical date
for the dispute must be the date of the filing the Memorial. Now, I accept that that is unusual, since
the latest that the critical date is normally put is the date of instituting proceedings, but that is a
product of the unusual way in which Nicaragua’s ca se has shifted since its Application was filed
with the Court.
II. The law applicable to sovereignty over the islands
16. Madam President, let me now turn to the la w applicable to the issue of sovereignty and
the relationship between effectivités and other grounds of title. After two rounds of Nicaraguan
pleading on this subject, certain matters are clear. We are agreed that the islands are not
terrae nullius nor have they had that status at any releva nt time. As there is no other claimant, it
must follow that sovereignty over the islands resides either with Honduras or with Nicaragua.
17. Nor is there really anything between the Parties as to the law to be applied to resolve that
question. Although Nicaragua has briefly repeated its assertion that sovereignty over the islands
should be determined by the location of the maritime boundary, its heart was plainly not in it and
its own counsel openly disavowed that approach on more than one occasion.
18. That was most obvious in the speech of ProfessorPellet, whose summary of the
applicable law was that the Court first looks to see whether either State can make out a claim of
original title and, if it cannot, then the evidence of effectivités is likely to prove decisive 29. As
ProfessorDupuy has just said, that was the approach in Burkina Faso/Mali (Frontier Dispute
(Burkina Faso/Republic of Mali), Judgment , I.C.J. Reports 1986 , p.587, para.63) and in
Pulau Sipadan (I.C.J. Reports 2002, p. 678, para. 126).
19. But if the law is clear, the basis on wh ich Nicaragua asserts title remains shrouded in
obscurity.
29
CR 2007/11, p. 38, para. 21. - 25 -
20. At the start of the second round, the distinguished Agent of Nicaragua put to the Court
the position with which Nicaragua had opened its case. “The position of Nicaragua [he told you] is
that sovereignty over these islets and cays should devolve on the Party on whose side of the line of
delimitation they are finally located.” 30 In other words ⎯ contrary to all the jurisprudence and
every textbook ⎯ the sea dominates the land. We showed in our first round speeches why that
proposition was untenable. No reply has been offere d to those criticisms. And, not surprisingly,
none of Nicaragua’s counsel chose to follow the lead of their Agent on that subject.
21. Then there is uti possidetis as a basis for title. In the first round, Nicaragua had expressly
disavowed any such claim 31. But then, as Professor Dupuy has just shown, in the second round, we
32
have Dr. Oude Elferink saying “Nicar agua’s title to the cays dates from 1821” . Now, Members
of the Court might have been surprised to hear him say that, since in his first round speech, he had
told you “it is impossible to establish the situation of the uti possidetis juris of 1821 in respect of
the cays in dispute” 33. And Professor Remiro Brotóns stuck to that latter view in his second round
speech. So it seems that uti possidetis is out on the Nicaraguan side, if only by a majority.
22. Instead, Nicaragua has advanced an entirely new claim ⎯ that the islands became
Nicaraguan because of their supposed adjacency to the Nicaraguan coast. Now, Madam President,
this requires a little thought. Adjacency is releva nt to the application of the doctrine of uti
possidetis in that part of the world, as Professor Sánc hez Rodríguez will show. But he will also
demonstrate that the supposed adjacency of these is lands to Nicaragua is another of the mythical
beasts in which counsel for Nicaragua takes such delight.
23. But, more fundamentally, as the passage from the Palmas award, to which
Professor Dupuy has just referred, makes clear, outside the context of uti possidetis juris -- and it is
outside that context that Nicaragua is advancing its claim, as we have seen ⎯ outside the context of
uti possidetis , adjacency simply does not provide a basis for title to territory. It has, in
Judge Huber’s words “no foundation in international law”.
30CR 2007/11, p. 27, para. 68.
31
See, e.g., Prof. Remiro Brotóns at CR 2007/3, p. 36, paras. 85-88.
32CR 2007/11, p. 65, para. 38.
33CR 2007/1, p. 51, para. 11. - 26 -
24. Nicaragua has also hinted, more obliquely, at a variation on its adjacency argument, that
sovereignty over the islands is somehow affected by the fact that they lie to the south of what
Nicaragua calls the “main Cape channel”. Mr. Colson will deal with the geographical aspects of
this argument when he talks about the relevance of the channel tomorrow. Suffice it to say for now
that, as a basis for determining sovereignty over isla nds, their location on one side or the other of a
navigation channel has “no foundation in interna tional law”, as Judge Huber said about proximity,
unless, of course, the parties have agreed upon the use of such a channel as a boundary and there is
no hint of that here.
25. So, that leaves the possibility of a Nicaraguan claim based on effectivités. Nicaragua has
had a lot to say about effectivités. But the Court will have been st ruck by the fact that all that
Nicaragua has said has been about Honduran effectivités. It has maintained a stony silence about
its own conduct. That is not surprising. There is not any. In the first round, I cited the Eastern
Greenland case as showing that for a State to acquire title in this way, the evidence had to show
two things: “the intention... to act as soverei gn, and some actual exercise or display of such
authority” (Legal Status of Eastern Greenland (Denmark v. Norway), Judgment, 1933 , P.C.I.J.
34
Series A/B, No.53 , p.45) . Nicaragua has shown neither. Incredible as it may seem,
MadamPresident, Nicaragua has offered the Court no evidence ⎯ no evidence at all ⎯ that any
Nicaraguan official has ever so much as set foot on one of these islands. It has produced no
evidence of anything which could amount to an exercise or display of authority over the islands.
This was expressly raised by Professor Sands in the first round 35and Nicaragua has made no
answer to it. The silence is eloquent, Madam President.
26. By contrast, the basis for the Honduran claim is perfectly clear. Honduras claims title
derived from the doctrine of uti possidetis to all of the islands north of the 15th parallel. My
colleague Professor Sánchez Rodríguez will reply in a few minutes to the Nicaraguan arguments
regarding uti possidetis . I would only add that Nicaragua made no reply to the point put by
Honduras in the first round that, if the islands were not terrae nullius at the time of independence,
34
Quoted with approval in the case concerning Sovereignty over Pulau Ligitan and Pulau Sipadan ,
I.C.J. Reports 2002, p. 682, para. 134.
35CR 2007/7, p. 22, para. 7. - 27 -
then title must have devolved to one of the succe ssor States and Honduras is the only State to have
claimed title on that basis of succession from Spain, the uti possidetis ground.
27. Now, the effectivités ⎯ all of which date from after independence ⎯ are relevant to this
case in two respects. First, they confirm the title based on uti possidetis. Secondly, and in the
alternative, in the event that the Court finds that no State can make out a claim based on uti
possidetis, then they provide a free-standing basis for title. That was the approach taken by the
Court in the Pulau Sipadan Judgment. Of course, in that case the Court relied on the effectivités
because it had found that there was no original title. Honduras maintains that it has an original title
and this is confirmed by the effectivités, but the decision in Pulau Sipadan shows that if the Court
does not accept Honduras’s primary case and also holds, as we say it must, that Nicaragua has no
original title, then the effectivités of both Parties have to be weighe d in order to decide which State
has the superior claim. Contrary to what is suggested by Nicaragua, there is no question of
effectivités being adduced in order to override an original title.
III. Witness statements
28. Madam President, before I ask you to ha nd the floor to Professor Sánchez Rodríguez,
there is one point I must deal with about the evid ence in this case. In the first round, Nicaragua
launched a sustained attack on the integrity of that evidence, suggesting that some of those witness
statements filed by Honduras were not to be relied upon because the language used was said to
indicate that this was not the testimony of the witnesses themselves but so mething dictated by a
representative of the Honduran Government. Those allegations were repeated in the second round.
29. Madam President, any court is heavily de pendent upon the integrity of the parties and
their representatives in the way in which evid ence is compiled and submitted to the court. This
Court, as Members know full well, is particularly dependent upon that integrity as it cannot call
upon the investigative machinery or the sanctions available to a national court. It is also
particularly dependent upon witness statements as opposed to oral testimony.
30. It is, therefore, of the utmost importan ce that one party should not call in question the
integrity of the witness statements submitted by another ⎯ and should not allege that these are not
honest testimonies ⎯ unless it has evidence to support such a claim. If Nicaragua really had cause - 28 -
to suspect that the witness statements submitte d by Honduras were not honest reflections of the
testimony of the witnesses, it could have asked th e Court to arrange for those witnesses to attend
for cross-examination. But it did not do so. Nor has it produced any evidence of its own to
contradict most of the evidence in the witness statements tendered by Honduras.
31. The Court will, of course, decide for itself on the evidence before it. We invite Members
of the Court to read again all of the witness stat ements attached to the Honduran pleadings. They
are the testimony of people who are patently sincere. They make clear that the only exercise or
display of authority over the islands has been th at of Honduras. Nicaragua has offered nothing by
way of response ⎯ that, and its attempts to denigrate the witnesses put forward by Honduras,
speaks volumes about its lack of a real case.
32. Madam President, that concludes my arguments and I ask you to call upon my colleague
Professor Ignacio Sánchez Rodríguez.
The PRESIDENT: Thank you, ProfessoG rreenwood. I now call upon
Professor Sánchez Rodríguez.
M.SÁNCHEZ: Madame le président, Messieurs les juges, je vais consacrer ma dernière
intervention devant vous cet après-midi à deux questions distinctes. Tout d’abord, je répondrai aux
questions soulevées mardi dernier par mon collègue et ami, le professeur Remiro Brotóns, lequel
m’a reproché de ne pas lui avoir déjà répondu al ors que ma réponse n’était prévue qu’aujourd’hui.
Ensuite, je ferai référence aux thèses de la derniè re heure exposées par le professeur Alain Pellet
sur l’adjacence.
I. L’uti possidetis juris
1. En ce qui concerne l’ uti possidetis, je suis confronté au «J’accuse» que m’a lancé mon
collègue espagnol. Je tenterai par tous les moye ns d’exposer d’une mani ère clinique et froide
certains faits, déjà connus de la Cour.
2. Mon contradicteur a soutenu de façon répétitive la notion de l’inexistence d’une
«hiérarchie normative» dans le système législa tif et réglementaire de la Couronne d’Espagne
(cf. CR 2007/3, p. 23, par. 32 ; CR 2007/12, p. 11, par.7). Le Honduras n’a jamais exprimé cette - 29 -
notion ni n’en a tiré des conséquences. Il s’est limité à soutenir que les cédules royales de 1745 et
de1803 ne pouvaient être supplantées par l’Inst ruction pour le gouvernement des garde-côtes
de1803. Cette dernière ne doit ni être sous-estimée ni être surestimée. En effet, lorsque j’ai
analysé cette Instruction je me suis demandé de quelles autorités elle émanait, quel était son objet,
qui en était le ou les destinataire(s) et quel en ét ait son contenu. Après examen, j’ai conclu que
ladite Instruction ne pouvait avoir remplacé les deux cédules royales mentionnées.
3. Mon contradicteur m’a invité à une sorte de combat de boxe, en un ultime et dernier assaut
sur le bien ou le mal-fondé des thèses qu’il a présentées devant cette Cour sur l’inexistence d’un uti
possidetis maritime. Le Honduras, depuis toujours a pris le parti d’utiliser, premièrement, les
documents présentés à l’époque devant le roi d’ Espagne et en particulier le rapport de la
commission d’examen. Ce document qui a une im portance capitale n’a même pas mérité un seul
mot de la part du Nicaragua. Deuxièmement, le Honduras s’est appuyé sur l’avis d’un expert en
matière d’administration militaire espagnole en Amérique et non pas, comme l’a fait la Partie
adverse, sur une construction de de rnière minute. C’est pour cette raison que j’ai refusé d’entrer
dans un combat de boxe furieux. En même temps, mon contradicteur s’est plaint que cet avis serait
tardif, et l’a ajouté seulement très récemment dans la duplique du Honduras ⎯ je note en passant
que cela veut dire il y a trois ans et demi. Il a demandé instantanément que l’expert espagnol soit
appelé pour discuter ses thèses devant la Cour, th èses dont il aurait pris connaissance il y a à peine
quelques jours (cf. CR 2007/12, p. 11, par. 3-4).
En ce qui concerne en particulier les compéten ces des capitaineries générales en mer, je me
permets de rappeler que le Nicaragua a expressément soutenu :
«En outre, les ordres donnés par le monarque à ses capitaines généraux et autres
représentants de combattre les actes de piraterie, les corsaires et la contrebande dans
une zone géographique plus ou moins bien définie ne sauraient en aucun cas être
assimilés à des actes d’attribution d’une compétence territoriale en haute mer.» (RN,
vol. I, p. 50, par. 4.61.)
Ceci étant, le Nicaragua a accepté il y a quatre ans dans sa réplique que les capitaines généraux
détenaient des compétences tant sur la terre qu’en mer, donnée qu’il nie aujourd’hui. En réalité, le
roi d’Espagne possédait non seulement les navires et les eaux, mais aussi les chevaux et les terres.
e
4. Relativement à la largeur de la mer territoriale espagnole au milieu du XVIII siècle qui,
au Honduras, était de 6milles marins en vertu de la cédule royale de1760, mon contradicteur a - 30 -
affirmé de façon péjorative mardi dernier : «En réalité, à cette époque-là et encore en 1821, la règle
générale de souveraineté maritime de la C ouronne était déterminée par la portée du canon.»
(CR2007/12, p.12, par.12.) Cette affirmation, qu’il ne prend pas la peine de prouver, est en
contradiction flagrante avec ce que soutient un manuel de droit international dont l’auteur et
l’inspirateur principal est le professeur Remiro Brotóns . 36
«Bien que cela ne soit pas discuté, la thèse a été soutenue en doctrine et
officiellement que, depuis la cédule royale du 17 décembre 1760, l’Espagne disposait
d’une mer territoriale ⎯ des eaux juridictionnelles ⎯ selon la terminologie
traditionnelle espagnole de 6 milles…»
Pas un seul mot sur le boulet de canon, ni la moi ndre référence à l’ironie d’attribuer à ce texte un
effet qui «pourrait convaincre à condition de ne pas lire la cédule royale».
5. Mon contradicteur ⎯ toujours éminent et respecté ⎯ critique l’«affirmation légère» sur la
carte coloniale espagnole de 1774 (cf. ibid., p.12, par.10), carte sans doute d’une importance
capitale aux fins de prouver la vol onté du monarque espagnol à une da te où ni le Nicaragua ni le
Honduras n’existaient comme Etats indépendants.
[Carte LISR 2.2.1]
6. J’accepte son invitation de me pencher à no uveau sur cette carte afin de rappeler quelques
aspects sur ce qu’il a dit. Premièrement, la ligne de séparation coïncide avec un parallèle et avec
un cap ; deuxièmement, dans sa partie supérieure, à droite, un méridien est utilisé pour séparer les
possessions espagnoles et portugaises en Amérique du Sud; troisièmement, la partie supérieure
gauche montre clairement qu’à cette date l’ Audiencia et la capitainerie générale du Honduras se
trouvaient en dehors du champ territorial correspondant à la vice-royauté de Santa Fe, tandis que la
côte atlantique du Nicaragua en faisait clairement partie. Ceci contredit la position de la Partie
adverse sur ce point.
7. Je me tourne maintenant vers les deux nouvelles cartes présentées mardi dernier par le
Nicaragua qui leur consacre seulement trois lignes. Sans aucun doute, je crois que l’effort de la
Partie adverse mérite quelques commentaires supplémentaires.
36«Aunque no sin discusión, se ha venido manteniendo doctrinal y of icialmente la tesis de que, desde la Real
Cédula de 17 de diciembre de 1760, España disponía de un mar territorialunas aguas jurisdiccionales según la
tradicional terminología española ⎯ de seis millas… » (A. Remiro Brotóns et consorts, Derecho Internacional,
McGraw-Hill, Madrid, 1997, p. 603.) - 31 -
[CaLr2s]S
Le premier permet de corroborer la reconnai ssance par le Nicaragua d’une réclamation d’un
méridien comme frontière terrestre, alors qu’il occulte soigneusement sa projection maritime et
insulaire, de même qu’il cache le fait que le mé ridien coïncide avec le capCamarón. Ces deux
cartes reconnaissent expressément que le Honduras a toujours réclamé devant le roi d’Espagne des
lignes de séparation entièrement artificielles, constituées en totalité par des parallèles et des
méridiens. Finalement, et de manière cohére nte, le Honduras accepte que la fixation par la
sentence arbitrale comme limite le cap Gracias a Dios l’empêche à l’avenir de réclamer l’une
quelconque des îles situées au sud dudit cap, de même que le Nicaragua ne peut prétendre aux îles
situées au nord. Ce comportement du Honduras, qui paraît tant surprendre la Partie adverse, était
parfaitement clair, connu, a fait l’objet de discussions, a été négocié et a été admis par tous
en 1906.
8. A ce sujet, mon contradicteur se montre contrarié par les affirmations du Honduras
relatives à la méconnaissance et à la non-exécuti on par le Nicaragua de la sentence arbitrale
de 1906. Il affirme concrètement :
«Cette insistance à imputer un fait illicite qui n’a pas été commis finit par être
détestable. Le Nicaragua respecte ces décisions. Il est vrai que durant des décennies
il a discuté la validité de la sentence du roi d’Espagne. C’est un droit de l’Etat
d’invoquer la nullité d’une sentence arbitrale s’il considère qu’il existe une cause pour
ce faire. La situation de facto, tant que ce nouveau différend est pendant, ne peut être
qualifiée à la légère . Les Parties, dans notre cas, eurent recours à cette Cour qui
déclara que la sentence du roi d’Espagne était valide . Ceci fut décidé en 1960 et,
en 1963, la sentence a été totalement exécutée. Le Nicaragua retira son administration
de la zone en litige; il y eut un flux migratoire. L’uti possidetis prévalut sur les
effectivités nicaraguayennes.» (CR2007/12, p.13, par.15; les italiques sont de
nous.)
Madame le président, Messieurs les juges, permettez-moi de vous dire ma stupéfaction
devant les mots que je viens de citer. Le Nicara gua affirme le droit d’un Etat souverain de ne pas
exécuter et à méconnaître une sentence arbitrale penda nt des décennies. Il ignore que le caractère
obligatoire de la chose jugée commence au mome nt même où la sentence a été notifiée à l’autre
partie. Il soutient au surplus qu’un Etat possède le droit de ne pas exécuter une sentence parce que
cinquante ans après son prononcé il peut en faire appe l si le compromis ou les règles de l’arbitrage
le lui permettent. Il méconnaît ainsi l’analogie du Statut et du Règlement de cette Cour relative aux - 32 -
requêtes en revision et à la compétence de cette même Cour pour demander à la partie qui demande
la revision d’exécuter au préalable la sentence. Enfin, l’on pourrait ajouter des pages de
considérations complémentaires; mais cela serait superflu, bien que je ne puisse rester silencieux
devant le clin d’Œil que cet argument fait à ce tte Cour. Par ceci, le Nicaragua prétend qu’une
sentence arbitrale est quelque chose qui peut êt re déprécié et ignoré, sauf si sa validité est
confirmée par la Cour. Dans ce cas, elle doit être exécutée immédiatement bien qu’auparavant
quarante-sept années de non-exécution ont passé. Un Etat commence par ignorer la validité d’une
sentence arbitrale et quatre-vingt-quatre ans après finit par ignorer la validité d’un traité
international. Ce sont les choses de la vie.
9. Mon contradicteur, ainsi que tous les écr its et interventions orales des conseils du
Nicaragua, se sont référés exclusivement à la da te critique de 1821, comme la date critique de l’uti
possidetis ⎯au sens particulier qui peut être attri bué à cette date pour ce principe. Cette
affirmation de la Partie adverse est, en principe, correcte lorsqu’il s’agit de différends entre pays
centraméricains, mais seulement en principe. Ce qui veut dire que cela n’est pas forcément le cas
dans notre affaire. Comme on le sait, la date critique de l’ uti possidetis juris pour les pays
sud-américains, est celle de 1810. Cette date n’est pas la date critique rele vant de notre affaire ou
au stade actuel, mais elle est aussi pertinente pour notre affaire puisque, si avant cette date (par
exemple en 1803, comme le soutient le Honduras) l’administration militaire du Nicaragua avait été
transférée à la vice-royauté de SantaFe et à la capitainerie générale du Venezuela, la succession
d’Etats entre la vice-royauté du Mexique et du Nicaragua n’aurait pas été possible. Pour utiliser les
mots de Max Huber dans la sentence de l’ Ile de Palmas «nemo dare potest quod non habet» . Ceci
est la raison pour laquelle l’affirmation du Nicaragua sur ce point est dangereuse en ce qui
concerne le Honduras, comme elle le sera, en temps voulu, en ce qui concerne la Colombie.
10. Finalement, la Partie adverse revient sur l’ uti possidetis dans la présente affaire d’une
manière contradictoire, puis elle se refuse à l’utilis er à l’encontre des îles lilliputiennes. Il faut
souligner, en premier lieu , que le mémoire du Nicaragua ne consacre aucun mot ou une seule
phrase à ce principe. En second lieu, le Nicaragua soutient dans sa réplique que « l’uti possidetis
n’est pas un titre» (RN, vol.I, p. 9, par.1. 24), alors que quelques pages auparavant, il affirmait
que: «Les îles et cayes en litige dans le cadre de cette dernière instance [celle de la Colombie] - 33 -
⎯au contraire de celles en litige en l’espèce ⎯ ont été expressément mentionnées dans les
documents pertinents aux fins d’établir un titre fondé sur le principe de l’uti possidetis.» (RN,
vol. I, p. 38, note 130.) Cette contradiction devient plus aiguë lorsque le Nicaragua soutient pour la
première fois dans sa réplique que ce principe est applicable aux îles existantes dans la mer ( ibid.,
p. 43, par. 4.31), mais pas à certaines îles lillipu tiennes, donnée que le professeur Remiro Brotóns
admet expressément dans sa première interven tion orale sans limitation dans leur taille ou
dimension (cf. CR2007/3, p.36, par.88). En fin, mon contradicteur devra admettre que le
Nicaragua se contredit totalement dans ses appréciations sur l’uti possidetis.
11. Pour conclure cette première partie de mon intervention, j’espère que mon collègue et
ami, le professeur Remiro Brotóns ne renouvellera pas sa complainte que le Honduras n’ait pas
répondu à ses arguments car je crois l’avoir fait. Ce pendant, ce n’est pas le cas des conseils de la
Partie adverse auxquels, au cours de ma précédente intervention, j’ai proposé une série de questions
à répondre tout simplement par oui ou non. Malheureusement, je n’ai obtenu aucune réponse.
12. En tout cas, ce ne sera ni à Antonio Remiro, ni à moi-même de s’occuper de l’application
de ce principe car l’intervention du professeur Alai n Pellet a apparemment fait glisser la question
sur le terrain de l’adjacence, ou ce qui est la même chose, sur celui de la contiguïté. Madame le
président, avant de passer à la deuxième partie de mon intervention ⎯il me manque à peu près
15 minutes ⎯, je vous propose de faire une pause.
The PRESIDENT: Yes, if it is convenient for you. The Court will shortly rise.
The Court adjourned from 4.25 to 4.40 p.m.
The PRESIDENT: Please be seated. Please continue, Professor Sánchez Rodríguez.
M. SÁNCHEZ :
II. L’adjacence
13. Je dois confesser publiquement mon admiration sincère au professeur Alain Pellet. Il est
le digne héritier de la tradition juridique française des présentations orales. Sa maîtrise des silences
et des intonations, son utilisation des pauses et des formules vaticanes rendent parfaites ses - 34 -
interventions d’un point de vue formel. Notre éminent contradicteur sait aussi manier le fouet avec
vigueur comme il le fit sur le Honduras à l’occasion de sa dernière intervention. On n’oubliera pas
que l’un des mérites de notre collè gue français est sa maîtrise de l’ illusionnisme et de la magie. A
l’occasion de son intervention lundi dernier, notre contradicteur a fait surgir un lapin de son
chapeau rompant ainsi la séquence du discours du Nicaragua. Il a dit que :
«Le titre dont se prévaut le Nicaragua n’est autre que le titre alternatif que le
Honduras n’hésite pas à revendiquer égalemen t: celui de l’adjacence. M.Colson
invoque à cet égard les traités conclu s par l’Espagne, respectivement avec le
Nicaragua le 25juillet1850 et avec le Honduras le 15mars1866; aux termes des
articles premiers de ces deux traités, la reine d’Espagne renonce à toute prétention sur
les anciennes provinces du Nicaragua et du Honduras «avec [leurs] îles adjacentes».
Mais, Madame le président, ceci conforte la position du Nicaragua et nullement celle
du Honduras.
L’adjacence n’est pas une notion susceptible de manipulation: ce qui est
adjacent, c’est ce qui est près ⎯ et lorsque plusieurs choses, ou îles, ou côtes sont plus
ou moins proches les unes des autres, ce qui est le plus près. Or, l’adjacence parle en
faveur du Nicaragua, pas du Honduras ⎯ quoique celui-ci s’efforce de laisser croire.»
(CR 2007/11, p. 40, par. 25 et 26.)
Et le professeur français, sans hésitation aucune, conclut avec une grande autorité et sûreté :
«celui [le titre territorial] qui appartient au Nicaragua du fait de l’adjacence des îlots
en question par rapport à ses côtes, adjacen ce reconnue par les traités conclus avec
l’Espagne en 1850 par le Nicaragua et en 1866 par le Honduras, ne peut être remis en
cause sur la base des effectivités incertaines invoquées par le Honduras» ( ibid., p. 49,
par. 51, avec référence à RN, p. 95 et 96, par. 6.90-6.92).
14. Madame le président, Messieurs les juges, je vais à nouveau à confesse. Le professeur
Pellet a surpris tant ma capacité d’imaginer que mon ingénuité. Maintenant, le professeur
RemiroBrotóns va comprendre ce qui s’est pass é il y a quelques minutes lorsque soudainement
tous les deux nous fûmes mis hors jeu par un drib le juridique que même Ronaldinho aurait été
incapable de réussir sur un terrain de football. Il a aussi mis en évidence l’ingénuité du
Dr Oude Elferink, qui un peu plus tard a soutenu de manière quasi infantile que «the Nicaragua’s
title to the cays dates from 1821» (ibid., p. 65, par. 38).
15. J’examinerai maintenant avec la plus gr ande attention l’anatom ie du lapin apporté par
l’autre Partie. La première affirmation ⎯ directe ⎯ serait que l’adjacence favorise le Nicaragua et
défavorise le Honduras. Cette affirmation est dé nuée de toute tentative de justification, de
corroboration ou de preuve de la part de la Partie adverse. Non, l’adjacence, au contraire de ce que - 35 -
prétend le Nicaragua, renforce la souveraineté insulaire hondurienne comme le montre la carte
portée à l’écran et préparée ex profeso ou au moins laisse le match équilibré.
[Cartes sur l’adjacence insulaire LISR 2.3.1, 2.3.2 et 2.3.3]
Cette carte permet de prouver tout d’abord que l’adjacence des îles par rapport à la côte est
nettement favorable au Honduras, et ensuite que l’adjacence des îles honduriennes entre
elles ⎯lesquelles constituent un groupe et un continuum en interrelation ⎯ milite clairement en
faveur de la souveraineté hondurienne en application de ce titre alternatif.
16. La seconde affirmation de notre contradicteur est que l’adjacence constitue un «titre
alternatif» pour la souveraineté insulaire hondur ienne, lui aussi invoqué par le Honduras. Il
convient de rappeler la vieille sentence de l’Ile de Palmas et ce qu’a dit l’arbitre Max Huber dans le
contexte des conflits d’attribution des îles terrae nullius :
«Ce principe de la contiguïté … il manque totalement de précision et conduirait,
dans son application, à des résultats arbitraires.» (RGDIP, 1935, p. 182.)
17. La troisième affirmation de l’autre Partie est que «l’adjacence n’est pas une notion
susceptible de manipulation». Cette affirmation, incompréhensible en elle-même, contredit la
décision de MaxHuber que je viens de citer. Il est alors impossible d’expliquer au professeur
AlainPellet que l’expression «îles adjacentes» utilis ée dans la sentence arbitrale de1906 et dans
d’autres textes, antérieurs ou postérieurs à l’ém ancipation coloniale du Nicaragua et du Honduras,
aurait été inacceptable, en conséquence de son ambiguïté et de son défaut de précision lorsque c’est
le Honduras qui l’utilise. Cependant, grâce à la magie de l’élocution de notre maître français,
l’expression s’avère être claire et précise pour le Nicaragua lorsqu’elle est utilisée par la reine
d’Espagne au milieu du XIX siècle.
18. Sur ce point, l’équipe du Nicaragua ne fa it pas montre d’unanimité. De manière plus
prudente, le professeur Remiro Brotóns ne fait pas de référence directe à l’adjacence, mais il utilise
des formules plus vagues comme celles de «princ ipe de proximité» ou encore de «dépendance»
lorsqu’il parle de Meanguerita par rapport à l’île de Meanguera. Et puis, la Chambre de cette Cour
a prudemment évité l’utilisation du mot «contiguïté» ou «adjacence» (cf. CR 2007/3, p. 36, par. 86)
en tant que titre hypothétique de souveraineté d’El Salvador sur cette île. - 36 -
19. La quatrième affirmation du Honduras a pour point de départ une fois de plus
l’observation contenue dans la réplique du Nicara gua lorsque ce pays soutient: «[I]l en découle
que le Honduras a la charge de prouver qu’il y a eu glissement de ce titre en sa faveur» (RN, vol. I,
p. 103, par. 6.118 b)). Alors, le Honduras est aujourd’hui dans son bon droit lorsqu’il regrette que
le professeur Pellet et le Nicaragua n’aient pas pr ouvé l’existence d’un titre alternatif d’adjacence,
son contenu et son opposabilité vis-à-vis du Hond uras. Le simple fait de mentionner un titre
présumé ne convertit pas automatiquement ce dernier en droit, comme la Partie adverse semble le
prétendre.
20. La cinquième affirmation apparaît au Honduras comme étant la plus importante et la plus
substantive en l’espèce, à savoir la parenté ou l’autonomie des traités de paix et d’amitié signés par
l’Espagne, le Nicaragua et le Honduras en 1850 et 1866 en relation avec l’ uti possidetis. Ceci
découle de la thèse du Nicaragua qui semble cons idérer ces traités comme une source autonome et
indépendante d’attribution de la souveraineté terr itoriale sur les îles. Serait-ce un nouveau titre
specifique? Je commencerai par affirmer que ce s deux traités n’apportent aucune nouveauté au
panorama de la pratique conven tionnelle espagnole étant donné que l’Espagne a signé ce genre de
traités à l’époque avec ses anciennes colonies. Da ns tous ceux-ci, la formule d’«îles adjacentes» a
été répétée.
21. Si le titre de souveraineté insulaire dé pend desdits traités, immédiatement quelques
questions techniques se posent. La prem ière est celle de l’opposabilité du traité
hispano-nicaraguayen par rapport au Honduras et vice versa. La sec onde est le problème
complémentaire de la date critique applicable au différend insulaire. Quelle est cette date critique :
1850et 1866, ou bien 1821, 1906, 1960, 1977 ou 1979? La troisième affecterait le champ
d’application territorial des deux traités. S’appliquent-ils à chacune d’entre elles ? Je me demande
combien de différends territoriaux ont surgi entr e les pays américains de l’ancienne couronne
d’Espagne en application des différents traités de paix et d’amitié signés par l’Espagne au cours du
e
XIX siècle et au nom de l’adjacence. Mon éminent contradicteur en connaît-il le nombre?
Aucun, professeur Pellet, aucun.
22. Il est vrai que notre collègue de l’autre cô té de la barre ressemble à un auteur qui a été
depuis des années, depuis 1999, à la recherche de s on personnage. Il croit l’avoir rencontré dans - 37 -
l’adjacence de 1850 et de 1866. Mais sa quête s’est révélée infructueuse et frustrante car lesdits
traités ne sont pas autre chose qu’une reconnaissance conventionnelle, expresse et bilatérale de l’uti
possidetis. La reine d’Espagne s’est lim itée à reconnaître à cette époque l’ uti possidetis espagnol
existant en 1810 et en 1821, selon les pays, établi par ses prédécesseurs. J’ai recommandé à l’autre
Partie l’utilisation du texte élaboré par la «commission d’examen» qui a servi de base à la sentence
arbitrale de1906, celle-là même que le Nicaragua n’a pas exécuté et a ignoré durant plusieurs
décennies. Mais ceci a été une vaine recommanda tion, malgré ma bonne foi. Ainsi s’explique
précisément ce que signifient ces traités dans le contexte général de l’ uti possidetis juris, et de ses
applications particulières et découlant de ce prin cipe. Ce fait qui est connu de tous ceux qui ont
étudié le droit colonial espagnol a été ignoré (volontairement?) par mon contradicteur, avec pour
résultat d’essayer de jeter un rideau de fumée sur cette Cour afin d’éviter l’application d’un uti
possidetis présumé et imprécis en matière insulaire pa r le biais d’un titre juridique inexistant
aujourd’hui, encore plus ambigu et non localisable su r le terrain. Finalement, sept ans plus tard, le
professeur Pellet a fini par rencontrer le personnage.
23. Mes conclusions seront très brèves et très simples, Madame le président et Messieurs les
juges. Quant aux accusations du professeur Remiro Brotóns, je crois que toutes les manifestations
de manichéisme ⎯ du type «j’ai toujours raison, la partie adverse jamais» ⎯ doivent être évitées.
Quant au professeur Pellet, il doit reconnaîtr e que malgré ses tentatives de fuir l’ uti possidetis
depuis1999, il a fini par retomber sur celui-ci en 2007; cette fois sous le déguisement de
l’adjacence.
Madame le président, Messieurs les juges, à la fin de ces plaidoiries orales, je dois remercier
très sincèrement la patience et l’attention que vous m’avez manifestées. Merci beaucoup.
Veuillez, Madame le président, appeler mon collègue, le professeu r Philippe Sands, pour
continuer l’exposé du Honduras.
The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Professor Sánchez Rodríguez. I now call Professor Sands.
Mr.SANDS: Madam President, with your permission, I am going to do my very best to
finish by 6 o’clock but I may seek your permission to overshoot by three or fourminutes. But I
shall be in your hands. - 38 -
1. Madam President, Members of the Court, in my presentation this afternoon I will return to
the conduct and intentions of the Pa rties in relation to two issues: the first is sovereignty over the
islands, the second is the tacit agreement between th e Parties with respect to the treatment of the
15th parallel as the maritime boundary.
2. As we have already said last week, there is a very close connection between these two
issues: Honduras’s sovereign intent and activities in respect of the islands informs and supports the
Parties’ tacit agreement on the 15th parallel. Th is close connection between sovereignty and tacit
agreement is particularly evident in respect of the oil concessions and also fisheries, with the
islands being used as a base for activities down to the 15th parallel but not beyond.
3. The fact that there is a close connec tion does not mean, however, that the issues are
identical. ProfessorPellet said that our distin ction between a dispute over sovereignty and a
37
dispute over delimitation was “artificielle et illogique” . And with great respect, that is not right.
This Court has always proceeded on the basis that the legal issues are distinct, that the applicable
law is distinct and Nicaragua has now accepted th at this is the correct approach: on Tuesday
morning, in response to our insist ence that issues of territorial sovereignty must be decided before
38
the question of maritime delimitation, Mr . Brownlie said “That is no doubt true.” So I will start
with the islands and move on to the delimitation.
4. Before doing so I would like to make a sma ll number of preliminary points. As directed
by you, Madam President, at the close of the first round, I will only address points made by
Nicaragua in its second round, as well as the points that it did not make. For this case is quite
striking not only for the arguments that Nicaragua did make in the second round, but those it has
chosen not to make. There are points of contra diction. There are points to which it has not
responded and on which it now app ears to have conceded. I will say more about this during my
presentation. At this stage let me just highlight a couple of examples.
5. The most significant feature of Nicaragua’s case is that it has given up putting a positive
case for its own sovereignty over the islands or any effectivités north of the 15thparallel.
Dr. Elferink made no effort whatsoever to persuade you of Nicaragua’s sovereign intent or activity
37
CR 2007/11, p. 49, para. 51 (1).
38CR 2007/12, p. 39, para. 3. - 39 -
over any of the islands. His presentation on Monday was entirely defensive: he tried to undermine
Honduras’s sovereign actions over the islands and limited himself to that. Equally significantly, he
addressed not a single word to the question of H onduras’s sovereign intentions. Nicaragua seems
no longer to challenge that aspect, and it is di fficult to see how it could. All that Nicaragua
challenges is the sufficiency of Honduran effectivités.
6. But that is not the only part of the case abandoned by Nicaragua. In the first round the
Agent and several counsel attacked Honduran effectivités on the grounds that they post-dated
Nicaragua’s supposed critical date. In the first round the Agent said that beyond the oil
concessions “all the other material filed as eviden ce by Honduras refers to activities occurring for
the first time after that date of 1977” 39; and similar claims were made by counsel for Nicaragua 40.
We responded by providing numerous examples of Honduran effectivités that pre-dated May 1977,
even going back as far as the Agrarian Law of 1936 on which Nicaragua remained conspicuously
silent. Those examples seemed to us to be unanswerable, and they were indeed unanswered. So in
the second round Nicaragua abandoned its earlier position and adopted a new one. “[P]lusieurs des
41
quelques ‘effectivités’”, said Professor Pellet, “datent de cette période de deux ans (1975-1977)” .
So Nicaragua’s case now is not that our effectivités are not relevant but they are inadequate. There
is much that I could say about this line of attack, beyond the fact that it is manifestly wrong. But
3CR 2007/1, p. 34, para. 65. The Agent went on to state that:
“All of the activities thatrefer to the area in dispute, as an identifiable area, occur after 1977.”
(CR 2007/1, p. 35, para. 66.)
“it must be clear that there were no activities of any consequence taken by Honduras in the area in dispute
prior to the 1980s” (CR 2007/1, p. 36, para. 70).
“the only certified and verified use of these cays before the critical date was by the Cayman
fisherman . . .” (ibid.).
With respect to specific activities, he stated as follows:
“(i) Fisheries: Practically all of the highly selected testimony by fishermen filed by Honduras refers
to situations dating from after 1977... The same applies to any fishing regulations before the
1980s. There is no area identified that could even vaguely be considered as referring to the area
in dispute.
(ii) Honduran administration and legislation, application and enfo rcement of Honduran civil and
criminal laws, regulation of immigration and public works and scientific surveys, all cited in the
Honduran written pleadings, are all related to fact s occurring after the 1980s and some even after
this case came before the Court. Any references prior to that period are vague and could refer to
any area in the Caribbean under Honduran sovereignty.
(iii) The first Honduran Constitution to include so me of the islands and cays in dispute dates from
1982.” (CR 2007/1, p. 41, para. 90.)
4See inter alia the comments of Mr. Elferink, CR 2007/3, pp. 38-39.
4CR 2007/11, p. 47, para. 45. - 40 -
the bottom line is this: Nicaragua now accepts that Honduras has effectivités that pre-date its own
early critical date.
Islands
7. Let me turn then to the islands. The Cour t is faced with a number of issues that it will
wish to address.
8. The first is whether these insular featur es are islands. The Parties are agreed on the
definition. It is that definition found in Artic le 121 of the 1982 Convention. If it is a “naturally
formed area of land, surrounded by water, which is above water at high tide” then it is an island.
9. The second issue is whether the islands in question are susceptible of effective occupation
42
by any sovereign. In the first round the Agent of Nicaragua said that they were not . Nicaragua
has changed its position on this also. It seems to have been, perhaps, persuaded by our argument
43
that that was wrong. Professor Pellet confirme d: “ce sont des îles susceptibles d’appropriation” .
So this seems no longer to be an issue.
10. The third issue is which of the “cays” and “reefs”, as Professor Brownlie described them,
are to be treated by the Court as islands in this case. There are a number of islands about which the
Parties are not in dispute: the Parties agree that Bobel Cay, South Cay, Savanna Cay and
Port Royal Cay are islands within the meaning of the 1982 Convention. You can see these now on
the screen, which shows the latest version of the British Admiralty chart, updated to 2006 ⎯ they
are highlighted in yellow [PS3.1]. And that chart provides confirmation of other evidence put
forward by Honduras that these are, indeed, islands.
11. During the course of the hearings one issue has become the subject of attention, assisted
perhaps by the helpful question from Judge ad hocGaja, and that concerns Cayo Palo de
Campeche and Cayo Media Luna. In respect of these features two points arise: first, their location,
and second, their status. We do not think that a great deal turns on these two islands, but it is
important, nevertheless, we think, to address them fully.
42
CR 2007/1, p. 38, para. 77.
43CR 2007/11, p. 35, para. 16. - 41 -
12. Let me first deal with their location. Professor Pellet tried to show that the islands were
adjacent to Nicaragua, not Honduras: and to achieve that effect he had to tilt his map
37º southwards on its axis 44. The merits of that approach speak for themselves. Dr. Elferink also
did his best to sow confusion, and I certainly do not hold that against him. He was doing his job,
and it was not an easy one. Given the absence of ev idence furnished to him by his client to make
any sort of positive case for Nicaraguan effectivités it is entirely understandable that he would
adopt the tack that he did. But the fact is there is no confusion over the islands. Honduras has been
consistent in its presentation of geography. Ca yo Palo de Campeche and Cayo Media Luna are
where we have always said they are. They are in the same place today as they were in 1936 when
Honduras first adopted the Agrarian Law that made explicit reference to Palo de Campeche, and
they are in the same place that they were in 1957, when the Constitution did the same thing.
13. The maps and charts that are before th e Court make that abundantly clear. Whatever
popular names may or may not have been given to particular islands and cays, whatever the
folklore from Jamaica or anywhere else in the regi on, the fact is that the maps and charts have
been ⎯ and continue to be ⎯ perfectly consistent.
14. On the screen is the 1933 map that I took you to last week [PS3.2]; it is plate 24 of our
Counter-Memorial. The distinguished Agent of Nicaragua described this map as “an unofficial
map dating from 1933” 45. With respect, that is not accurate. The map was published by the
Instituto Panamericano de Geografía e Historia, as y ou can see on the top. It is an international
organization that was created in 1928 by the G overnments of American States and Honduras and
Nicaragua are members of that international or ganization. Since 1949 the Instituto has been a
specialized organization of the Organization of American States. So, the map has a certain
authority.
15. The 1933 map has an insert in the bottom left -hand corner. I would like to read that out
to you: it says:
“This map was constructed with data provided by His Excellency
Dr.RicardoAlduvín, Minister Plenipotentiary of Honduras in Mexico, and by
44
CR 2007/11, plate AP2-3.2, 19 March 2007.
4CR 2007/11, p.22, para.47. Similarly c ounsel for Nicaragua also stated that this was “not an official map”,
CR 2007/11, p. 53, para. 8. - 42 -
Professor UlísesMesaCáliz, both Delegates of their country to the Preliminary
Assembly of the Panamerican Institute of Geography and History. The official map of
the Republic of Honduras was also used to this end.”
So this indicates the authority of the map, and, of course, the very direct involvement of the
Honduran State in its preparation. And the insert does also include the usual caveat on boundaries.
16. [PS3.3] We do not rely on this map, however, for the purposes of establishing any
boundaries. We rely on it to confirm the defi nitive location of Palo de Campeche in 1933. You
can see on the screen: it shows Palo de Campeche where we have always believed it to be.
Nicaragua has not put any evidence before the Cour t to show that Cayo Palo de Campeche is
located anywhere else. There is no other map before the Court that shows Palo de Campeche
except where it is located on this map.
17. Now on the screen, the 1926version of the United States Navy Hydrographic Office
chart [PS3.4]. This is the closest one we c ould find to the date of 1933, which was easily
accessible and in the public domain: and, there, in red, you can see Logwood Cay and there, in
green, you can see Half Moon Cay. Now these are bo th old charts, but with the assistance of our
cartographers we have been able to superimpose the 1933 chart over the 1926 chart. You can now
see the result on the screen [PS3.5]: in red, Cayo Palo de Campeche and Logwood Cay and in
green, Cayo Media Luna ⎯ Half Moon Cay; and in blue, Cayo Bobel ⎯ and Bobel Cay is
underneath that blue inscription. Now it is not a perfect fit ⎯ we accept that ⎯ but we would not
have expected it to be so. It is extraordinarily close. There can be no room for any doubt that the
words Cayo Palo de Campeche and Logwood Cay refer to the same feature. There can be no doubt
that the words Cayo Media Luna and Half Moon Cay also refer to the same geographical feature.
And in both cases the features are shown as islands . The evidence before the Court shows that
PalodeCampeche and Logwood are one and the same. When Honduras referred to Palo de
Campeche in its Agrarian Law of1936, adopted th ree years after this map, it can only have been
referring to the island identified as such on the 1933 chart, and to Logwood Cay in the 1926 chart.
18. What has happened since the 1920s and 1930s? Well nothing has changed. We have
gone and looked at every version of the United States NIMA chart since; corrections published in
1942, 1964 and 1985, show Logwood Cay in exactly the same location. And every version of the
British Admiralty chart, published in 1905, 1917, 1929, 1941, 1989, 1999 and last year in 2006, all - 43 -
show Logwood Cay (Palo de Campeche) in exactly the same location. So the evidence is
dispositive.
19. Let me then turn to the question of the status of Palo de Campeche and Media Luna: are
they submerged or not? Let us start with the evid ence. As I have shown, the evidence before the
Court shows that both were islands in 1926 and in 1933. Dr.Elferink told the Court that
46
“LogwoodCay... has disappeared under the waves” . What was his evidence for that? His
evidence. He had none. Indeed, the evidence with which some of his team members are so closely
associated, and they are not apparently here toda y, directly contradicts him. The most recent
British Admiralty chart shows that Logwood Cay (Palo de Campeche) and Media Luna Cay are
indeed islands, and that they are not submerged. The most recent chart was published in2006.
And it is on the screen now [PS3.1]. There you can see Logwood and Media Luna where they have
always been, and there is no indication that th ey are submerged. So, according to the British
Admiralty, these were islands in 2006. Nicarag ua’s Memorial proceeded on the basis that
47
Logwood and Media Luna were not submerged . And on Tuesday morning Mr.Brownlie put
some plates up that showed Nicaragua’s provisional equidistance line. You can see one of those
plates ⎯ IB3-11 ⎯ on the screen [PS3.6]. You can see that Cayo Media Luna, the same one as I
have just been taking you to, is taken as a base point. So Mr. Brownlie did not proceed on the basis
that Cayo Media Luna was submerged, presuma bly because he relied on the British Admiralty
chart, which shows that it is not. But there is something else. Although he did not advertise the
fact, because he did not put a label on it, Mr.Brownlie also used Logwood Cay (Cayo
Palo de Campeche) as a base point. On the screen now you can see a series of lines starting off the
green colouring just to the north of Media Luna. That is Palo de Camp eche, as is now shown on
the screen. So Mr.Brownlie also proceeded on the basis that Palo de Campeche was not
submerged.
20. Against that evidence is the second footnot e at page 14 of our Counter-Memorial, which
indicated that “the original Logwood Cay and Media Luna Cay are now submerged”. That
footnote was inserted at the request of EngineerLu is Torres, who sadly is not able to provide us
46
CR 2007/11, p. 54, para. 9.
4NM, p. 9, para. 15 and p. 166 (paragraph not numbered). - 44 -
with assistance or explanation. To the extent that the statement was accurate ⎯ and it is now
contradicted by new evidence, including the 2006British Admiralty chart ⎯ it could only have
described the situation as at the da te he described it and we did in the Counter-Memorial, that is to
say March 2002. The British Admiralty chart of 1999 does not show the islands as submerged.
21. So all of this brings us to the question posed by Judge ad hoc Gaja. The distinguished
Agent of Nicaragua said in response to that ques tion that “[i]n accordance with the information
presently available to the Government of Nicaragua, the cays of Logwood and Media Luna are now
submerged” 4. The Agent did not however refer to any ev idence to back that up and of course he
ignored the charts upon which Nicaragua’s team is relying and he contradicted Mr.Brownlie. In
the time available we have done the best we can to ta ke steps to respond to that question. So in the
past few days we have obtained some publicly av ailable satellite imagery that shows the area in
question, including the islands. [PS3.7] You can see a large-scale picture now up on the screen.
This is an overall picture of the whole area.
The PRESIDENT: Professor Sands, may I interrupt to ask you where this is to be found.
That is not identified. What it is, is identified, but not where these and the ensuing ones are to be
found.
Mr. SANDS: In fact, I can help you on one matter. It is all the same single image and it was
obtained by our cartographer. I am afraid I can’t give you a precise detail. He put a call in and
obtained, though a United States source.
The PRESIDENT: Yes. You will appreciate the purpose of the Practice Direction. That is
information we need. So perhaps, as soon as conve niently possible, it will be passed to us and to
the other Party?
Mr. SANDS: Absolutely, Madam President. I can certainly give that undertaking. What we
were intending to do, was in the response in writing to Judge ad hoc Gaja, we were going to
provide obviously all of the information. And we certainly can and will provide that information.
48
CR 2007/11, p. 26, para. 63. - 45 -
The image that you see now is focussing in on th at area. It was taken in January 2003 and it
is a Landsat satellite image. We do not I’m afra id have the precise time, but we do have the day
and we will provide you with that. Judging by th e shadows from the clouds, I am told that it is
between 10a.m. and 2 p.m. which is the usual time for images of this kind to be taken. Going
clockwise you can see first Savanna Cay, then South Cay, then Port Royal Cay and then Bobel
Cay. And then we head north a little and reach Cayo Media Luna, and then a little further north
you get to the Arrecifes de la Media Luna. And we are going to focus in on that now. That is the
Arrecifes and on the very southern tip of that reef you see a white spot, and that is Cayo
Palo de Campeche, as shown on the British chart. So this image of January 2003 is consistent with
the latest United Kingdom and United States char ts that show Media Luna Cay and Cayo
Palo de Campeche (Logwood Cay) as islands. The answ er to the question, therefore, appears to be
that both features were above water when this satelli te image was taken, and they were not, at least
at that moment, submerged.
22. That is consistent with the evidence befo re the Court, showing that Palo deCampeche
and Media Luna Cays were islands at least fro m 1936 onwards. There is no evidence that these
were not islands when Nicaragua first ass erted sovereignty over them in 2001.
Judge ad hoc Gaja’s question was very precise and it asked about the islands today, and we hope to
be able to say a little more about that in our wr itten response to his question with full information
provided.
23. I can wrap up on some other issues raised by Dr.Elferink rather quickly. Nicaragua’s
Memorial makes clear, as do all versions of the British Admiralty chart, that Savanna Cay and
Logwood Cay are not the same. Quite why the tr iangulation marker on Savanna Cay is inscribed
with the word “Logwood” we do not know. But Savanna Cay is not Logwood. What we do know
is that in the second round Nicaragua had not hing to say about the 1976Agreement between
Honduras and the United States that allowed the triangulation markers to be placed on three
islands, and they seem to have abandoned what st ruck us as a manifestly hopeless argument that
the placing of the markers was not a direct result of that 1976Agreement. Dr.Elferink had no
evidence to back up his suggestion that the Ja maican Note of 25 February 1977 requesting
assistance for some stranded Jamaican fishermen on Savanna Cay might have referred to another - 46 -
49
island . One assumes that the Jamaic an authorities might have had available to them the British
Admiralty chart of that date, which was the 196 4 version and that showed Savanna Cay exactly
where it is now. Like the other cays, it has not moved.
24. Before I move on to the question of effectivités, there is one other issue I would like to
address. My friend ProfessorGreenwood has alrea dy touched upon it, and th at is the 1998 Free
Trade Agreement to which some re ference has been made, since it referred to Palo de Campeche
and Media Luna when it was adopted in April 1998. I want to express our gratitude to the Agent of
Nicaragua for assisting in clarifying the situation, which we are sure both Parties have sought to
address in good faith. The situation seems to be as follows. On 16 April 1998 the Presidents of
Nicaragua and Honduras, together with three other Presidents and the Foreign Minister of
Guatemala, signed the Free Trade Agreement. Annexed to Article2.01 was a definition of the
territories to which it was applicable, and the te rritory of Honduras expressly included Cayo Palo
de Campeche and Cayo Media Luna ⎯ which you have just seen on the screens. The copy which
we relied on ⎯ the copy actually signed by the Presidents ⎯ was obtained last week from the
website of the Inter-American Development Bank. And we have now provided a copy to the
Registrar and, I hope, to our friends from Nicaragua . What happened after the signature of the
treaty appears to be somewhat complex. But following signature there was a subsequent agreement
by the parties, which I am told was in the form of an exchange of letters, to make certain
amendments, including the removal of the Annex to Article 2.01. The difficulty has arisen because
the revised version has not been widely posted. It is available on the website of SIECA, exactly as
50 51
the Agent of Nicaragua has described , but so is the original version with the Annex ⎯and we
have indicated where on the website in the footno tes to my presentation. But unfortunately on the
SIECA website there is no indication of which of th e two is the authoritative version. The original
version of the treaty ⎯ the one with the Annex ⎯ appears to be also the only one available on the
website of the Inter-American Development Bank 52 and the Sistema de Información sobre
49
CR 2007/11, p. 55, para. 14.
50
See http://www.sieca.org.gt/op3-2.htm.
5See
http://www.sieca.org.gt/publico/marco_legal/tratados/texto_del_tratado_….
5See http://www.iadb.org/int/commerce/guatemala/TLC_CA_DOM_1998/texto_normat…. - 47 -
Comercio Exterior of the Organization of American States (OAS) 53. To compound the difficulties
the treaty has no depositary and has not been register ed at the United Nations. And to make things
even more interesting the possibility cannot be excluded that parties have ratified different versions
of the treaty. We accept entirely the Agent’s account of what has happened in Nicaragua. The
version that was approved and ratified by the Ni caraguan Assembly did not include the Annex.
Nevertheless, the fact is that the President of Nicaragua did sign the treaty with the Annex. The
fact of signature was consistent with our submission that there cannot have been a dispute over the
sovereignty of the islands at that time. And that remains our position. We make no more of the
1998 treaty than the fact of its signature on 16 April 1998. And we doubt that it will be necessary
for the Court to address what appears to be a complex series of questions about the status and effect
of that treaty at any particular point in time thereafter.
25. So the 1998 treaty appears to cause certain difficulties, but other matters do not. One
point is crystal clear after Nicaragua’s second round. It has not been able to meet our challenge to
identify a single document, or any other evidence, that it has ever articulated or published any
formal claim to sovereignty over Bobel, Savanna , Media Luna, Cayo Palo de Campeche, Port
Royal, South Cay or any other island or feature north of the 15th parallel at any time before March
2001 when it filed its Memorial. So, if this C ourt were to decide that Nicaragua somehow has
sovereignty over the islands, a rather interesti ng precedent would be set: a State would no longer
have to have asserted title to sove reignty over a territory before initiating legal proceedings for a
determination that it had sovereignty over that territory.
Effectivités
26. We turn then to the question of effectivités in relation to the islands. There was a great
deal on which Nicaragua was silent. We invited Nicaragua to assist us and the Court by pointing to
a single example of effectivités. Dr.Elferink could not provide a single example. No legislation
indicating sovereign intent or activity. No fish ing licences. No public works. No oil concession
activity. No navigational aids. Nothing.
53
See http://www.sice.oas.org/trade/camdrep/indice.asp. - 48 -
27. Dr. Elferink did not even come to the aid of his witnesses. There was simply no response
to our arguments. At the end of the day all he w as left with were two things: the private writings
of a leading Nicaraguan academic, Dr. Incer; a nd, once again, Commander Kennedy who, he must
hope, may yet turn out to be Nicaragua’s saviour . Well, a geographical index cannot confirm the
55
existence of long-standing title of Nicaragua . Whatever views Dr.Incer may have had over the
islands in 1971, they were ignored by the Government of Nicaragua. The Government did not pick
them up and run with them and proclaim any title over any of the islands fo r three decades, until
March 2001. As regards Commander Kennedy, I do not feel the need repeat what we have already
said in our pleadings and in our first round. Dr. Elferink confirmed by silence the one key fact on
this issue of turtle fisheries ⎯ the one key fact: throughout the entire period of the turtle fisheries
dispute, over more than seven decades, there is not a single piece of evidence that Nicaragua has
ever asserted title over any of the islands, or authorized any turtle-fishing activity over any of those
islands, or done anything else that could amount to an expression of sovereign intent or the exercise
of sovereign authority over the islands.
28. And that, presumably, is why the new Nicaraguan submission on sovereignty over the
islands is drafted as it is. It is notable, we think, that Nicaragua has not asked the Court to declare
that it has sovereignty over the islands. It has mere ly asked the Court “to decide the question of
sovereignty over the islands and cays within the area in dispute”. It is rather instructive to compare
Tuesday’s submission with the one that is set out in the Nicaraguan Application of
6December2001 instituting proceedings against Colombia. In that case Nicaragua asked the
Court to adjudge and declare that “it has soverei gnty over the islands of Providencia, San Andres
56
and Santa Catalina and all the appurtenant islands and keys” . So, why, one is bound to ask, is
Nicaragua so hesitant on this case?
29. The fact that Nicaragua has no effectivités of its own meant that counsel for Nicaragua
devoted their time during the second round to the sufficiency of Honduran effectivités.
54
CR 2007/11, p. 59, para. 23 and p. 64, para. 34.
55
CR 20007/11, p. 64, para. 34.
56http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/idocket/inicol/inicolorder/inicol_iapplic…. - 49 -
57
ProfessorPellet referred to our effectivités as “[d]es manifestations sporadiques at ambigues” . I
am not sure whether Members of the Court will consid er that to be a fair characterization. For our
part, we do not. After all, we believe we ha ve submitted far more than the successful party
tendered in the cases of Qatar v. Bahrain or Indonesia/Malaysia, a point that Nicaragua has not
disputed and cannot dispute. Honduras has tendere d evidence dating back every decade at least as
far as the 1930s. Just to give just a few exam ples from each decade, pr ior only to the critical
date ⎯ there is far more after that early start. You could start with the Agrarian Law of 1936 and
then move on to the United States Fish and Wildlife Report of 1943 5, then on to the
1957 Constitution, then to the oil concessions of the 1960s, and then the fisheries licenses of 1976
and January 1977 and, still, you would not have reached Nicaragua’s premature “critical date”. So,
even if Professor Pellet is right to characterize these examples as sporadic and ambiguous ⎯ which
he is not, we say ⎯ he has chosen words that could not attach themselves to Nicaragua’s own
effectivités. There can be no ambiguity about Nicaragua’s absence of effectivités. Nothing is
nothing. And when you have nothing the charge of being sporadic is one to which a State can but
aspire.
30. There was silence from Nicaragua on a great deal. It seems to have given up on
Honduras’s sovereign intentions. Nothing about the 1936 or 1950s laws, as I have mentioned.
31. Nothing about the application and enforcement of Honduran civil and criminal laws on
and around the islands. Nothing about the judicial decisions that I took you to 59. There was no
effort whatsoever to rebut our evidence, on im migration laws, on work permits, on fishing export
licenses on taxes ⎯ absolutely nothing.
32. Counsel for Nicaragua also had nothing to say about our evidence on navigational aids.
On the 1976 arrangement with the Un ited States, as I have mentione d, there was silence. On the
placing of the triangulation markers in 1980 and 1981, there was silence. On the use of the
islands ⎯ Bobel ⎯ to assist in the work of the oil concessi ons, the argument was put first that this
57
CR 2007/11, p. 47, para. 45.
58CMH, Ann.162. This expressly refers to a number of the fishing banks in the maritime area in question and
states categorically that they belong to Honduras, contrary to the assertions of counsel for Nicaragua.
59CR 2007/7, pp. 34-39. - 50 -
was private activity, and second, in any event, the antenna was a temporary structure 60. Well, the
Court has ample evidence before it to establish beyond any doubt the antenna was authorized by
Honduras as part of the oil concession licence that was granted to the Union Oil Company in the
area around and on Bobel Cay and down to the 15th parallel. It is true that we have not been able
to provide, for example, an environmental im pact statement from the Honduran Environment
Ministry, but this was the mid-1970s before EIAs had become fashionable and necessary. We have
provided the Court with the concession granted by th e State that covered that area. We have also
provided a report from the company to the State explaining what it had done. The report provided
very detailed information, of a technical and temporal character. It is very difficult for us to see
what else it is that counsel from Nicaragua would n eed from us in order to be satisfied that this
was, indeed, activity regulated by the Honduran State.
33. On some of the cartography too Nicaragua was silent in its second round. In my initial
presentation I addressed the fact that Nicaragua’s three maps were of limited, if any, significance.
The first one was undated. It did not show any of the islands now claimed. Silence. The second
map ⎯ the school map of 1982 ⎯ also did not show any of the islands in question. Silence. The
third map of 1997 once again failed to show any islands in the main map. Again, silence. Whilst
its inset showed several cays off the Miskito Coast, including some that lie north of the
15th parallel, the map expressly states that maritime boundaries in the Caribbean Sea had not been
61
“juridically delimited” and that insert showed no boundary. Counsel had nothing to say about
these arguments.
34. And, counsel for Nicaragua was also quiet on the subject of third State recognition of
Honduran sovereignty, and recognition by international organizations ⎯ including organizations of
which Nicaragua was a member. Nothing was said to counter, for example, United States
recognition, in the form of the 1943 Report or the 1976 Arrangement. I have already explained
why the response to Jamaica’s Note of 1975 was singularly inadequate. And that left just
Argentina and its request for Overflight in 1975. Dr.Elferink suggested I was “economical with
60
CR 2007/11, p. 62, para. 29.
6CR 2007/7, pp. 43-44. - 51 -
62
the facts” . I hope, MadamPresident, that I was not. I did choose my words very carefully. I
identified the co-ordinates provided by Argentin a and I described them as being located, as
Dr.Elferink said, “directly over the area around the islands” 6. I did not say anything about a
territorial sea. Dr. Elferink provided a plate. [ PS3.8] It is AE3-11, and you can see it now on the
screen. What Dr. Elferink did not do was include in his plate the Nicaraguan bisector line. So, we
have included it and you can see it. The effect of that line, if adopted by the Court, would be to
take a point that Argentina believed in 1975 to be subject to Honduran sovereignty and shift it into
Nicaraguan sovereignty.
35. Madam President, I am not sure that there is much more I can usefully say to assist the
Court on the issue of sovereignty over the islands . Last week I and several of my colleagues
referred to the two elements that the Permanent Court of International Justice had said were central:
“the intention and will to act as sovereign, and some actual exercise or display of such authority” 64.
I also suggested that the task for the C ourt was to weigh Nicaragua’s evidence of effectivités
against that of Honduras. The Permanent Court made clear that the State that fails is the one that
“could not make out a superior claim” 65. And counsel for Nicaragua has now confirmed that it is in
agreement with Honduras. As Professor Pellet put it, Honduras’s effectivités “doivent être mises en
parallèle avec celles que peut aligner le Nicaragua” 6. He called it a “concours d’effectivités” 67.
We see great difficulty to identify any basis upon wh ich Nicaragua could reasonably prevail in this
particular “concours”. Honduras’s effectivités are consistent with title arising from uti possidetis.
We respectfully submit that Honduras has soverei gnty over the islands of Palo de Campeche,
Media Luna, Bobel, Savanna, Port Royal and South Cay, as well as all the other islands, cays and
reefs to the north of the 15th parallel.
6CR 2007/11, p. 63, para. 32.
6CR 2007/7, p. 40, para. 47.
6P.C.I.J., Series A/B, No. 53, pp. 45-46.
65
Ibid. On the need balancing of competing effectivités, see also the declarat ion of Judge Higgins, Qatar v.
Bahrain, 16 March 2001, I.C.J. Reports 2001, (“Even if Qatar had, by the time of these early effectivités, extended its
own sovereignty to the coast of the peninsula facing the Hawars, it performed no comparable effectivités in the Hawars of
its own”).
6CR 2007/11, p. 41, para. 28.
67
Ibid. - 52 -
The maritime boundary along the 15th parallel
36. Madam President, I turn now to the question of the traditional line along the
15th parallel ⎯ the issue of tacit agreement. In our first round we took the Court to some
considerable material, to explain the basis fo r our submission that evidence on oil concessions,
fisheries concessions and naval patrols point decisively towards the existence of the 15th parallel as
68
the maritime boundary, and its mutual rec ognition as such by both Honduras and Nicaragua .
Taken together the cumulative evidence presen ts an overwhelming e xpression of Honduras’s
long-established sovereignty and exercise of jurisdicti on over the waters that lie to the north of the
15thparallel. That was graphically illustrate d by the witness statement of Mr.Bodden, who
described how he was apprehended by a Nicaragua n patrol for alleged illegal fishing and escorted
to the 15thparallel where he was released. Counsel did not respond to that affidavit or to that
evidence.
37. To try to introduce some note of variety, I am going to deal this time with the issues in
reverse order. I will start with fisheries and pa trols, and then move on to the oil concessions.
Counsel for Nicaragua had very little to say on fisher ies. By their silence they confirmed what we
have said in our written pleadings: they have no evidence to show that they have ever, ever, sought
to regulate any fisheries activity north of the 15thparallel. Nicaragua had nothing to say to our
invitation that they could bring to Court a single bitacora that shows Nicaraguan activity north of
the 15th parallel, or a single fishing licence or act of legislation. It seems they have not been able
to do so, and from that only one conc lusion can be drawn: Nicaragua has never regulated any
fisheries activity anywhere north of the 15th parallel.
38. The distinguished Agent for Nicaragua certainly did have quite a lot to say about the
INPESCA fishing contract of 1986. That concerned, as you will recall, the amendment by
INPESCA of a fishing licence that authorized fisheries activities north of the 15thparallel after
69
Honduras had submitted a formal objection . Much was said about a Mr. Octaviano Ocon Lacayo,
who perhaps may not be too delighted about his first appearance in proceedings before this Court.
We cannot express any view on him, of course. We could perhaps take a point about the
68
CR 2007/9, pp. 10-38.
6CR 2007/11, pp. 12-15, paras. 7-17. - 53 -
introduction of new evidence after the close of th e written proceedings, but since the material is
said to be reasonably accessible that would be, on our part, excessively formalistic. We could
dwell on the fact that the evidence concerning hi s alleged misconduct apparently related to acts
occurring five years after –– five years after –– the INPESCA licence was amended and seemingly,
on the face of the material we were given, had no connection whatsoever with INPESCA. But the
simple point is this: despite the innuendo there is no claim or evidence before this Court to indicate
that the licence was not actually amended as the ev idence shows. Nicaragua has not alleged that
the document is not real, although it does say that the author was not authorized to make the
change. We do not express a view on whether th at is right or not, it would be a matter of
Nicaraguan law. But the rules of international la w are perfectly clear on this and we refer you to
Article 7 of the International Law Commission Articles on State Responsibility, entitled “Excess of
authority or contravention of instructions”. Article 7 provides as follows:
“The conduct of an organ of a State or of a person or entity empowered to
exercise elements of the governmental authority shall be considered an act of the State
under international law if the organ, person or entity acts in that capacity, even if it
70
exceeds its authority or contravenes instructions.”
There is no question that we are able to rely on that amendment as evidence before this Court.
39. ProfessorRemiro Brotóns made the claim that the witness statement of DonDaniel
Santos was the only one submitted by Honduras concerning fisheries activities in the 1950s and the
1960s. Now, it is not immediately apparent to us why those years suddenly should become so
important, since they come two or more decades befo re Nicaragua’s alleged “critical date”. But in
any event he is not correct, since there are at least six other witness statements tendered by
Honduras in the Counter-Memorial ⎯ and I have indicated them in the footnote in my
presentation ⎯ which confirm fishing in those areas in the 1950s and in the 1960s and, in one case,
even earlier 71. So it seems that DonDaniel was not entirely alone on the seas during that period
70Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Inteationally Wrongful Acts with commentaries 2001,
pp. 99-103. (Available at http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/commentaries/9_6_2….)
71A number of other witnesses refer to having fished in th e waters in question for 30 years or more. See, e.g.,
CMH, Ann.67 (visiting the cays for over 30 years), Ann.68 (i n the area of Savanna Cay for approximately 40 years);
Ann.74 (visiting the cays for over 30 years); Ann.82 (fishing since 1958); Ann.83 (fished from 1958 to 1974);
Ann. 85 (fishing since 1959). - 54 -
around the islands, although he will, I am sure, feel comforted by the expressions of concern from
his former compatriot on that side of the room.
40. I turn to the question of patrols ⎯ and I can be brief. I addressed this issue in the second
72
of my first round presentations . Our submissions addressed the material before the Court ⎯
including log books and other materials ⎯ which indicated clearly that patrols on both sides have
routinely recognized the 15thparallel as the maritime boundary. Nicaragua had nothing to say
about this in its second round, so our first round submissions stand not replied to and unrebutted.
41. The third area I must touch on is that of oil concessions. The evidence supporting our
arguments in the first round was, we submit, cl ear and unambiguous. The practice of both sides
has routinely recognized the 15thparallel as the maritime boundary. The joint regulation of the
Coco Marina project is compelling and irrefutable.
42. Professor Remiro Brotóns had nothing to sa y about the merits of our evidence, and it is
very difficult to see what he could say. The merits appear to us to be so very clear. On the key
points, Nicaragua has abandoned some of its positions. The concept of the open-ended oil
concession has turned out to have a rather short lif e between the start and finish of these hearings.
Nicaragua accepts, as it must, that every single one of its oil concessions had a northern limit, the
result of the concession area being defined not only by co-ordinates but also by acreages, and every
single one of them went up to the 15th parallel and no further.
43. Counsel for Nicaragua tried to explain how the limits to oil concessions granted to the
Union Oil Company of Central America had been determined 73. He confirmed that Union Oil
required a concession for which the northern limit w as “definitive”. That is what was granted by
the Government of Nicaragua. Some were then renewed. Our assertion that none ⎯ not one ⎯
has ever extended north of parallel 15, either before or after Nicaragua’s critical date, has not been
challenged by Nicaragua.
44. There was no greater evidence in support of any other arguments made by
Professor Remiro Brotóns. He told the Court that the Instituto Nicaragüense de Energía (INE) did
not authorize concessions north of the 15thparallel by reason of its prudence. Well, that may or
72
CR 2007/9, pp. 35-37.
7CR 2007/12, p. 19, para. 44. - 55 -
may not be correct, but he provided no evidence whatsoever to support the statement 74. There is
nothing in the Instituto’s reports to support that conclusion, and there is no other evidence before
this Court to support that conclusion.
45. He made a great number of assertions about the practice of oil companies in
Central America. Again, no evidence ⎯ not a shred of evidence ⎯ was provided in support. Our
references to the rules of Nicaraguan law that are described in the Instituto’s reports of 1994 and
1995 were brushed aside as “extrêmement formaliste” 7. We seem to have made the mistake of
referring to what the Nicaraguan Gove rnment’s own institute actually said ⎯ a governmental
body ⎯ that the oil concessions granted by Nicaragua between 1955 and 1981 were regulated by
law. They are evidence, those two repor ts, before the Court. They are the only evidence that
explains how all of the oil concessions that you have before you were granted. There is no
evidence before the Court ⎯ none ⎯ that indicates that oil companies in Nicaragua or anywhere
else in that region could do as they please, or that the Nicaraguan law would have allowed them to
act in that way.
46. I could go through each of Professor Remi ro Brotóns’s points and show how they were
unsupported by any evidence whatsoever. Madam Pr esident, decisions on factual matters have to
be taken on the basis of evidence. Unsubstantiate d assertion is not sufficient. This is a court of
law, not a court of assertion and evidence is central. In El Salvador/Honduras the Chamber
expressed its appreciation for the real difficulties fa ced by ElSalvador in collecting evidence and
then it said this: “it cannot however apply a presumption that evidence which is unavailable would,
if produced, have supported a particular party’s case ; still less a presumption of the existence of
evidence which has not been produced” ( I.C.J. Reports 1992, p.399, para.63). The absence of
evidence on the part of Nicaragua is compelling. It is simply not good enough to claim that
Nicaragua’s system of government in that period w as wholly inadequate, or that the oil companies
simply imposed their decisions on the government of the day, or that Nicaragua could have had no
knowledge of the many oil concessions that Honduras granted between 1955 and 1978 despite the
fact that they were all published in Honduras’s La Gaceta and also in many other publications
74
CR 2007/12, p. 19, para. 45.
7CR 2007/12, p. 19, para. 46. - 56 -
around the world. It is simply not good enough to assert an absence of diplomatic correspondence
or to turn a blind eye to the decision of the International Court of Justice in Tunisia/Libya where the
Court plainly did take into acc ount the consistent practice of th e Parties as Mr.Colson explained
over a far shorter period of time, leading it to draw a line that followed that practice. And in that
case, the Court noted the existence of a de facto line which was the result of the manner in which
both Parties had initially granted concessions ( Continental Shelf (Tunisia/Libya), I.C.J. Reports
1982, paras. 96, 116-117 and 133 B (4). The Court found this conduct of the parties to be a highly
relevant circumstance (ibid., paras. 116-117 and 133 B (4)). It is not good enough to take refuge in
the Gulf of Maine case when the facts were, as we all know, so very different: I am not aware that
there was anything akin to the Coco Marina Project , to take but one example, in relations between
Canada and the United States, if there was, counsel for Nicaragua did not direct the Court towards
its.
47. Madam President, ProfessorRemiro Brotóns told us that a picture is worth a thousand
words 76. He is right. And lines in a picture are even better. So let me conclude my response by
looking at what actually happened in the relations between Honduras and Nicaragua throughout the
1960s and the 1970s. Let us look again, and more closely and quickly, at some of the images about
which counsel for Nicaragua had nothing to say. These are images that were produced by
Nicaragua itself or by intergovernmental organi zations or by other th ird persons who had no
interest one way or another in the outcome of this dispute.
48. The maps and diagrams are all before the Court in evidence, and none of them have been
challenged or rebutted. They all show the 15th parallel as the maritime boundary. I want to take a
few, a selection ⎯ this is not all of them; we woul d be here for hours if they were ⎯ and look at
them chronologically, quickly, starting in 1962:
⎯ PS3.9: 1962 diagram of Honduran oil concessions, published in the Bulletin of the American
Association of Petroleum Geologists.
⎯ PS3.10: 1968 map of Nicaragua’s offshore concessions and wells, published in Petróleo
Americano.
76
CR 2007/12, p. 18, para. 41. - 57 -
⎯ PS3.11: 1968 map of petroleum concessions of Honduras, published in Petroleum Legislation.
⎯ PS3.12: 1969 map of the oil concessions of Nicaragua, prepared by the Government itself ⎯
Nicaraguan Directorate-General of Natural Resources.
⎯ PS3.13: 1969 diagrams of Honduran and Nicaraguan oil concessions, published in the Bulletin
of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.
Now let’s go into the 1970s:
⎯ PS3.14: 1971 map of a fisheries project prep ared by the FAO-UNDP that provides a general
description of the continental shelf off Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
⎯ PS3.15: The next one shows the same thing but on the other side in relation to the continental
shelf off Honduras, also 1971.
⎯ PS3.16: Again in 1971, but this way moving away from fisheries to oil concessions ⎯
diagrams of both countries’ oil concessions ⎯ published in the Bulletin of the American
Association of Petroleum Geologists.
⎯ PS3.17: Again in 1971, a diagram of Nicaraguan oil concessions, published by the Petroleum
Concession Handbook.
Moving forward to 1974:
⎯ PS3.18: diagrams of Honduran and Nicaraguan oil concessions, again published in the Bulletin
of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.
Now let’s go forward to the 1980s and 1986:
⎯ PS3.19: this time a map published by Nicaragua itself describing the situation in 1986 as seen
by the Nicaraguan Instituto Nicaragüense de Energía.
And then into the 1990s:
⎯ PS3.20: in 1995 a map of the oil concessions, as of 1994, again published by the Instituto
Nicaragüense de Energía.
49. Madam President, Members of the Court, th ere is nothing before the Court that shows
any other lines in relation to the consistent practi ce of the Parties in the 1960s and 1970s. None of
these images was produced for the purposes of this litigation or for the purposes of advancement in
bringing a claim. Each of these pictures tells its own story. Each one reflects clearly the existence
of a tacit agreement over a period of two decades and more. Taken together over a significant - 58 -
number of years and covering a range of disparat e activities originating from disparate sources,
including the Nicaraguan Government, they clearly show a line that was agreed and respected by
both Parties. This degree of convergence is, we submit, simply without parallel in any international
proceedings of this kind. ProfessorRemiro Brotóns told the Court “les apparences sont
trompeuses”; appearances can be deceptive 77. But over the last three weeks, neither he nor any
other counsel for Nicaragua have been able to say why against the background of those images.
50. Madam President, Members of the Court, it remains for me to thank you and all the
Members for your very kind attention. I suspect that this is a good time to break, and tomorrow
morning my colleagues will be here to take over. Thank you very much.
The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Professor Sands. The second round of Honduras’s reply will
continue tomorrow morning at 10 a.m.
The Court now rises
The Court rose at 6 p.m.
___________
7CR 2007/12, p. 18, para. 42.
Public sitting held on Thursday 22 March 2007, at 3 p.m., at the Peace Palace, President Higgins presiding, in the case concerning Maritime Delimitation between Nicaragua and Honduras in the Caribbean Sea (Nicaragua v. Honduras)