CRITIQUE OF THE MECHANISM FOR THE ENFORCEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE (ICJ) JUDGEMENT

CRITIQUE OF THE MECHANISM FOR THE ENFORCEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE (ICJ) JUDGEMENT: A CASE STUDY OF CAMEROON vs NIGERIA

Introduction

The African territories which have attained independence and national sovereignty, cannot in a strict sense, be regarded as national states where all the coordinating states are controlled by a central government. They do not embrace a common past and a common culture; they are indeed, the arbitrary creations of the colonialist. The manner, in which European nations descended on Africa during the closing years of the nineteenth century in their scramble for territory, was bound to leave a heritage of artificially controlled borderlines, which now demarcate the emergent African states. It is against this backdrop, that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Judgment on the Bakassi Peninsula is critically examined. It is intended to consider the international agreements of the era of the scramble for Africa as source of conflict among African states. Undoubtedly, several boundary disputes have broken out between African states and there appears to be no acceptable criteria to employ as a guide to the settlements of these “unhappy legacy of colonialism”. Historical research may enable African leaders/statesmen to borrow a leaf from their pre-colonial ancestors whose attitude to the problems of „international‟ frontiers between one nationality and another was less emotional, less rigid and more pragmatic than that which many African leaders are adopting today.

The Bakassi Peninsula covers an area of about 1,000km of mangrove swamp and half submerged islands protruding into the Bight of Bonny (previously known as the Bight of Biafra). Since the 18th century, the Peninsula has been occupied by fishermen settlers most whose inhabitants are Efik-speaking people of Nigeria1.

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Since 1993, the Peninsula which apart from oil wealth, also boasts of heavy fish deposit, has been a subject of serious dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon with score of lives lost from military aggression that have been mostly instigated by Cameroon2. The matter, however, took a legal turn on march 24 1994, when Cameroon instituted a suit against Nigeria at the International Court of Justice, at the Hague, seeking an injunction for the expulsion of Nigeria armed forces, which it alleged were occupying the territory and to restrain Nigeria from laying claims to the sovereignty over the Peninsula.

TOPIC: CRITIQUE OF THE MECHANISM FOR THE ENFORCEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE (ICJ) JUDGEMENT

Chapters: 1 - 5
Delivery: Email

Number of Pages: 75

Price: 3000 NGN

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