4- ~-- - -
I '+
?! 1
1
Maître Doudou Thiam J
A ent de la République du Skniégal
~itel Bel Air
La Haye l
Monsieur leGreffier
de la Cour internationale
de Justice
25l17sKJ La Haye
Hollande
La Haye, le 11 avril1991
Réf. Affa-irerelativà laSentence arbitrale d31 juillet1989
(Guinee-Bissauc/Sénégal)
1
Monsieu lr Greffier,
J'ai l'honneur de voustransmettre lesré onsesdu Sénégal aux
uestions posees parleurs Excellences,Liessieurs les Juges
% eeramantry et Shahabuddeen.
Question du juae Weeramantrv
"Sile Tribunal avait ugéque Ikcccord de 3960 n'était
obligatoire que pou!a mer territorialmais non pour la zone
contiguë ni pour lptateau continental,celaaurait-iétéune
réponse affirmativeou negative A laquestion 1 ?" (traduction
du Greffe).
Réponse
La réponse & la question 3 du Compromis aurait étBtoujours
affirmative, danslamesure où la validitéde I'Acççirde 1960
étaitreconnue par leTribunal.La question posée par leJuge
l'Accordde 1e960 s'appliquait àtrois zones (merterritoriale,
zone contigüe et plateau continental) et nopas à une
seulement.
Bien sor,si l'Accordde 1960 avaitconcerné seulement la mer
tu'une réponsenaffirmative aurait eu le résultd'unesupposent
a&limitation compléte.
1
Deilxiii?mquestion du juaeShahabuddeen
"Au aiagra he 7 de saduplique dans la procédure arbitrale, le
SénBgal a d&chré: 'Aux termes de l'artic2edu compromis d'arbitrage
conclu le12 mars 1 985, les Parties apresent litige ont
convenu que lalimite trac4e en1960 sétend A l'ensemble
exclusives, à moins queleTribunal arbitrn'aboutisse 3
ta conclusion ue l'échangede lettres de1960 ne faitpas
droit entre lesarties'.
l
Quelssont lestermes particulierde l'articl2 surlesquels se
convenueleS?"éItrtuction du Greffe).rties enétaient amsi
Réponse
l
Le SBné al ne sefondaitpas sur des "termes particuliers" de
l'articl9 du Compromismais plut6t sur l'ensemble de ses
effets. Les termesde'l'articl2aAtaientet sontexactementrs
ceux que la Cour connalt.
Le S$négalavait simplement procédé A une interpretation de
leurs effets, en csens ue: a)dans Secas QUle Tribunal
celuioù il asseraità l'examen devlaquestiono2 enbcasdedans
réponse n ig'tive àlaquestion 1,la ligne frontiéserait une
ligne unique et applicabletoutes les zones maritimes.
Le Sénégal était ersuad6 que cette interprétatioavaitété
BlssaudevantrlleTribunalarbitralp.r35 et lecontre-mlémoire du
Senégal, par.52-53 et435).
Troisieme question du juueShaha buddeen
lanfrontierenamer', la prernierequestioseLrkferait-elleatiA
indirectement à lalrgnefixéepar cet accord?" (traduction du
Greffe).
La première question du Compromis portaitsurlavaIidité de
l'Accord de 1960 et donc se réf6rait indirectemenA laligne
fixée parcet Accord.
Je vous prie de croire, MonsieuleGreffier,a Ikxpression de
ma haute considération. ,as, BRUXELLES. LE .....2!.0k!.9......
AVENUE FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT 70
TELEPH. 647.OQ.90
AMBASSADE
DE LA REPUBLIQUE DE
GUI N&E-BISSAU
Monsieur Eduardo VALENCIA-OSPINA
Gref f ier de la Cour
Cour Internationale de Justice
LA HAYE
Monsieur le ~reffier.
Nous avons l'honneurde vous faire parvenir, ci-joint,
les rèponses de la République de GuinPée-Bissauaux quesiions
posées en audience du 8 avril 1991 par :
- S.E. le Juge SHAMABUDDEEN
- S.E. le Juge WEERAMANTRY
- S.E. le Juge GUILLAUME.
Veuillez agréer, Monsieur le Greffier,l'assurance de
notre consjdérationtrès diçtinguée. RBponse de la République de Guinee-Bissa u la question posi5e le
8 avril 1991 par le Juge WEERAMANIRY.
La ques-iio posee aux deux Parti es par le Juge WEERWTRY lors
1 de 1a seance du 8 avril 1991 était la suivante :
Si le Tribunal avait juge que t'accord de 1960 n'&tait
obligatoire que pour la mer territoriale m.ais non pour
la zone contigfie ni pour le plateau continental, ceta
aurait-il et6 une rgponse affirmative ou negative à la
question 1 ?
La repense de la GuinBe-Bissau est 2
Selon la Guinée-Bissau, si IeTribunal avait décidg que
l'&change de lettres de 1360 faisait droit entre les Parties pour
la mer territoriale, mais ne faisait pas droit pour la zone mntig0e
et le plateau continental, cela aurait Bté une reponse partiellement
afirrnatiwefpartie 1lement negat ive.
Cela aurait Justifie, du point de vue de la GuinBe-Bissau,
le passage 6.la 2ème question pour I'examen non seulementde la zone
&conamique exclusive, mais aussi pour l'examen direct de ta zone
contigfje et du plateau continental. RBponse de fa Republique de GuinBe-Bissau aux questions posees
I
I
le 8 avril 1991 par le Juge SHAHABUDDEEM.
La premiere question posee d la RBpublique de GuinBe-Bissau par
le Juge SHAWBUDDEEN a l'audience du 8 avril 1991 était la
suivante :
*
Mercredi dernier, he CHEMILLIER-GENDREAa U dGclar8 :
"La reponse à la première question ne pouvait &puiser
1
le debat que dans le cas, soigneusement v8rlfii5, sü ceite
repenseeut satisfait à I1exlgence du regtement de
l'ensemble du differend." (CR 91/2, p, 63)
Cela implique-t-il qu'il y avait une possibilite que le
diffgrend fDt regle dans son ensemble par une ri5ponse à
la première question ?
Pour rependre d cette question et Bclairer le propos tenu en
plaidoiries. il faut distinguer selon que Iton raisonne par rapport à
la formulation des questions de 11articl&2 du cctinpromis,ou par
rapport aux reponses 8 ces questions.
Le texte de he CHEMILLIER-GENDREAs Ue referait 6 la structure du
mprmis tel que celui-ci avait fite formul6.
Au niveau de la formulation du comproinis, FI fallait necessairement
tenir compte des positions des deux Partiesd'où decoulait le differend. Puisque le SBnegal soutenait que l'&changede lettres du
~
26 avril 1960 faisait droit pour la frontierede tous les espaces
l
1 maritimes actuels, il fallait que la question fht poç8e et elle le
. -,- ... -.A.....-.. ,,-*-<,.--.,.:-A ,,....- - . ' ...,.... ..?,...-,., : ..,-...-...>,v*...,., ...,xr.L.w>.-z:-.-: .y.. ......,
ffit. II fa1 lait .dbnc'aùssi 'qu'elle flit examinGe par le ~ribunkl.
!
Au niveau des repenses. le point de vue de la GuinBe-
Bissau a toujours 15tB qu'aucune repense à la premiere question ne
pouvait' Btre .totalemen affirmative. En effet le Tribunal Btant 1
appel6 6 Juger de ta validite et de Imopposabilit8 de llBçhange de
1
lettres et à Itinterpr8ters ii supposer qu'il ait estime que l'accord 1
Btait valide et opposable 3 la RBpublique de Guinee-Bissau, son
interprgtatjon selon le point de vue de la GuinBe-Bissau n'aurait
jamais pu conduire à ce que l'&change de lettres fasse droit pour tous
les espaces marins actuels. De fait, la nsentenceQ a depasse les 1
limites de la démarche interpretative.
Le plateau continental au-delà des limites de 1960 et la zone économique
exclusive devaient en tout etat de cause Atre delirniti?~ ex novo sous la
question 2 et cette délimitation devait Gtre cmbinee avec te contenu de
I1Bchange de lettres Bventueltement validé, de maniere à former une 1
Iigne unique de synthèse.
inséparables.
Les réponses aux questions 1 et 2 étaient ainsi s
En effet dans certainesconditionç. le Tribunal Btant appelè
-.
à établir une ligne unique de synthèse, te tracé de la frontière
definitive aurait pu tenir compte du contenu de'Ia&thange de lettreç
- : .touT en etablissant une ligne-definitive d'ensemble diffei'énte.
(voir à propos de la ligne unique de synthihe, du c6t& de la Guinee-
Bissau en particulier CA 91J3 p. 30 et 91/7 p. 54, et, du côt8 du
C'est cela gui selon la Guinee-Bissau devait apparaftre
apr6s une soigneuse verification. La 3he question posb par te Juge SHAHABWDEEN aux deux Parties à
l'audience du 8 avril 1991 etait la suivante :
-- -. _-_ _ En.se r6fe~an-t à l'accord de 1960 cmme a un accord
."ieIatif B lafrontiere en mern, la premier@ question se
ref8rait-elle indirectement A la ligne fixee par cet
accord ?
La rBponse de la Guinee-Bissa est :
Les termes l'etrelatif à la frontiere en merR dans la
prerni6t-questionde l'article 2 du -promis d'arbitrage designent
directement ce qui avait BtB l'objet de liechange de lettres de 1960,
B savoir la question de la delimitation maritime.
Ils impliquent une rtiference implicite au contenu de
l'accord et donc à la ligne qu'il etablit dans la mesure OU elle
appartenait 5 son contenu.REPLYOF THE REPUBLIC OF GUINEA-BISSAU TO THE QUESTION PUT BY
JUDGEGU1LLAUME
-Ad-----------------
The question put to the Republic of Guinea-Bissau by
Judge GUILLAUMEat the sitting of 8 April 1991 was as fo!lows :
"Dans sa plaidoirie, le Professeur HIGHET a mentionnt5
deux'cas dans lesquels des sentences arbitrales ont &te
consÎdi2rees commedivisibles.
"II a ajout4 que dans 'une petite minoritGu de cas, des
sentences arbitralesont BtB regardées comme indivisibles.
(CR 91/3; p. 47 de Iforiginal).
"A quels cas pensait-il ?"
The response of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau to this
question is as follows :
First, a preliminarypoint of clarification. In Professor
HIGHET1s oral argument, he did not say - as the question phrases it -
that, in "... lune petite minoriSB1 de cas. des sentences arbitrales
ont &tg reqardées camme indivisible^.^ What he actuallysaid was that : "... in other cases - admittedly a smal? minority - the
Jur idica l nature of one task is interrelated to that of the
other and ... (taht) it would be necessary to go back to the
drawing-board ..." <ls
.. . . . . . -. ..- ,.\.s .- :-
What professor HIGHET i n-tended to convey was not that these
other caçes were "considered", or "adjudgedn, as being "indivisiblen.
He #as expressing his own professional opinion about nhat would have
occurrqd in the cases he had in mind. had the issue of divisibility
been formally addressed.
In fact, al1 the caçes Professor HlGHET had in mind were
instances where arbitral awards had been repudiated or seriously
questioned. and in which issues of indivisibility or severabil itycoutd
have been raised. As more fully described below, in two instances -
PellePier (1885, 1887) and Costa Rica/Panama (1900, 1914) - there was
indeed a formal review, and subsequent rejection. of the award. "This
case was referred to in Professor H16HETts pleading on 4 April 1991
(CR 91/3. 4 April 1991, pp. 70-711." In one of those cases (Costa Rica/
, Panama), the reviewing authority expressly considesed (and rejected) the
idea af divisibility or severability of the award.
The cases Professor HlGHET had in mind were as followç :
cl> CR91/3,4Aprit 1991. p. 47 ; emphasisadded. TheFrench
translation of the sentence in question reads as fol lows :
"Dans d'autres cas cependant - et il s'agit la. nous en convenons.
d'une minorité - ta nature juridique de chacune des taches est
tributaire de celle des autres et il ne pourrait pas suffire de
'remplir les blancs1 ; il faudrait alors revenir à la table de
travail et reprendre à zéro." Translation, pp. 38-39 ; emphasis
added . (13 In the Nartheast Boundary arbi-t-ration of 1831 c2> several
questions were put to the King of the Metherlands. Md this award been
formaaly reviewed, il- would have been unlikely that the part of the
award relating ta the question, "What iç the line drawn due north from
the source of the river St, Croix," could have been sevérable frm the
part of the award relating to the question : "What is the ground ... which,
from that line the Northwesternmost head of the Connecticut river, divides
the rivers that empty themçelves into the river St. Lawrence from those
whi ch fa l 1 into the Atlantic Ocean It WOU ld have been mat unl ikely
that the arbitrator" aanswer to the question about the line drann frm
the source of the St. Croix river could have been maintained, separately.
fran his ançwer to the question about the ground that divided the rivers.
In the Pelletier case in 1885, U.S. Secretary of State
BAYARDreviewed - and rejected - an arbitral auard rendered by Mr. Justice ~
STRONGin uhich Mr. Justice STRONG had not app l ied Hai tian law to determi ne ~
-
the validity of irnprisonment and conviction of Pelletier for piracy and
l
attempted slave dealinq in Haiti. preferring instead ta apply what he ~
thought na5 international law. and under which he found no satisfactory
l
basis for Pelletier's conviction and irnprisonment or the seizure of his
vesse!. <3>
2 U.S. v. Great Britain (18311 ; 1 J.B. MDORE, INTERNATIONALARBITRA-
TIûNS (1898). p. 131.
l
<3> U.S. v. Hai-ki (1885) ; 2 J.B. MOORE. INTERNATIONALARBITRATIONS
(1898) 1749 at 1757 ; see at 1793, 1799 ; report of Secretary of
Çtate of January 20. 1887. 49th Cong., 2d Sess., Ex. Doc. No 64
(18871, Report at 7.
"Mr. Justice SlRONG's opinion was that : IWhat constitutes piracy
by the municipal law of a state may note be piracy as understood by
the lav of nations. The sfave trade has been deçlared to be piracy
by the statutes of several nations. But the slave trade was not pi-
racy in the view of that law in 1864, nor is it nom, though repeated
efforts have been made to have it so regarded.' (2 MOOREat 1773.)" Mr. Justice STRONG had said :
"Nor was there anything done by (Pelletier) in the ports of Hayti
that amounted to piracy recognised as such by the law of nations.
. - -
As 1 have said, I do not care 4-0 inquire what the faw of kyti
defining piracy may have been. ft is another law which is to be
the rule of deciçion in this case ; so it is stipulated in the
Secretary Bayard reversed the award, saying among other things that
the arbitrator should have applied a choice-of-law rule of international
law that would have looked to Haitian law to determine whether Pelletier
was properly arrested and charged for attempted slavery or piracy. He said :
"It was a rule of international 3aw in 1861. and iç a rule of
that law now, that offenses cmitted in the territorial
jurisdiction of a nation may be tried and puniçhed there.
accordiqto the defini-tions and penalties of its municipal law.
which becmes for the particular purpose the international la#
of the caçe." c5>
If one portion of the award - the interpretation of international
taw as not including reference to municipal law - had been rejected by
Secretary Bayard. he could not have sustained another portion - the finding
that Pelletier cmitted no crime under the law of nations.
~4, "Report at 7, 2 MOORE at 1775 ."
<5> Report at 17. On the othef hand, if Seçretary of State Bayard had
deterrnined that Haitian law did not apply, he would then have had to
rule that Pelletierqs imprisonment by Haiti was unlawfuf, ar at least
-
'find anothek basi s for' i-t.'The chai ce o^f taw and the propr iety of the
arrest were therefore sufficientfy interrelated so that invalidation
of the one would necessarily have invalidated the other.
, 13) In the Bolivia/Peru arbitration in 1909, c6> if the arbitra-
torls finding of an equitable division were to have been formally set aside,
it would have been unlikely that his finding - that the historical texts
were of no assistance in deterrnining the 1810 line - could have been left
undisturbed. unless the arbitrator had actually attempted to apply &i
possidePis (which he had notl. The converse wourd also have been true :
if his finding that the texts were inadequate had been set açide. the
equitable division could not have been rnaintained.
(4 1 In the Chamizal arbitration of 1910. t7> the Carmission
divided the tract into two separate portions . If a rewewhad deterrnined
that the splitting of the tracts was an excès de pouvojt, it would have
been unlikely that a reviewing authority could have accepted one - but
not the other - of those divided portions.
c6> 11 R. I.A.A. 133 at 141.
c7> United Statesi'Mexico, 11 R.1,A.A. 309, at 316. (51 The Costa Aica/Panama arbitration tB> did receive the benefit
of format review and teconsideration. In 1900 the original arbitrator had
rejected both rivers advanced by each party and had çelected a mountain
range as the boundary lin@, It waç.,later-,suggested t-hat one part of the
arbitration - the mountain line itself - be discarded. but that the river
boundaries stemming from the mountain line be retained :
"8s by the i-errnsof the previous treaty the previous award
was nat set aside as a whole. and the power was only given
to correct it in so far as it might be found to be without
the authority conferred, the consequence is that al1 the
results necessarily irnptied by the selection of the mountain
line frm Punta Mona along the stated counterfort, whiçh can
be upheld considtently with the previous treaty. mus% be
sustained although the mountain line itself be void for
want of authority to make it ... it may be implied frm
the argument that the contention iç that. the mountain-line
being out of the way for illegality. there would remain as
a part of the previous award a river line çomposed of the
Sixaola-Tarire Rivers since the award declared that the
mountain line would boud on the north the valley of such 1
1
rivets and hence they may constitute a boundary line within
the award previously made," <9>
c8> 1900. 1914 ; 11 R.I.A.A. 519. 528.
<9> 11 R.I.A.A. 543-44 ; emphasis added. The reviewing arbitrator, Chief Justice WHITE, threw out the
whote earlier finfing in 1914 and, instead, chose the muth of a river.
l
The river line of the firçt award was no7 considered divisible from the
_ A - _ __-n;s-, ,:..mounta.i n tine. The Ch ief Just i ce gave the -coupde -grâce- ta- the ~~suggés it n
of divisibi l iti in the fol lowing language :
"To dispose of thiç suggestion it is only necessary to point
, . out the fallacy of the prernises upon which it must rest çince
that permise virtually is that the previous çelection was of
a line formed by the Sixaola-Tarire Rlverç instead of the
counterfort or range of mountains, ... It is true, as is
suggested. that it was said that the line thus made bounded
on the north the valley of the Sixaola and Tarire, but this
declaration did not convert the mountain boundary into a
river one. In fact such a view of the ... award could onfy
be taken as the result of wholly imperrnissible surmises and
conjectures." <IO>
In conclusion, these cases only reconfirm the view of the
Republic of Guinea-Bissau as to the indivisibility of the Arbitral
Award of 31 July 1989 as well as the indivisibility of itç subject-matter.
<IO> 11 R.I.A.A. 544 ; emphasis added.
Written Replies to Questions put by Judges