UN top court to rule in Nicaragua, Colombia maritime borders dispute

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Judges at the UN's top court will hand down a ruling Thursday in a decades-long battle between Nicaragua and Colombia over maritime borders.

The hearing before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at 0800 GMT is likely to be the final ruling in the legal wrangle between the two Latin American countries, which has been raging since 2001.

The ICJ, which rules in disputes between countries, awarded Nicaragua a swathe of disputed Caribbean sea territory extending 200 nautical miles (230 miles, 370 kilometers) from its coastline in 2012.

But the following year, Nicaragua lodged a fresh case accusing Colombia of ignoring the ruling. It said Bogota had threatened to use force to back up its claims in the oil and fish-rich region.

Nicaragua's lawyers also asked the ICJ to rule that Colombia should pay compensation including for "the threat or use of force by the Colombian navy against Nicaraguan fishing boats."

Colombia denied the accusations, saying its presence in the region was "due to other imperatives" including the fight against drug trafficking and international maritime rescue.

A back and forth legal battle

Bogota accused Managua of interfering with indigenous fishing rights. The loss of fishing grounds because of the ICJ's 2012 ruling particularly affected the Raizal people, an English and Creole-speaking community who are mainly descendants of slaves abducted from Africa, Colombia's lawyers indicated.

Although there are no land borders between Nicaragua, located in Central America, and Colombia, in South America, diplomatic relations have been strained for almost a century over disputed maritime limits.

Nicaragua finally took Colombia to the ICJ in 2001, and in 2012, it won several thousand square kilometers of territory in the southwestern Caribbean that had previously been Colombian.

Colombia, which was left with only seven islets, said at the time it would no longer recognize the court's jurisdiction on border disputes.

Nicaragua then went back to the court in 2013 against violations of the judgment by Colombia.

Judges at the ICJ ruled in 2016 that they had jurisdiction in the dispute, ignoring Colombian objections that it was not competent to hear the cases.

Countries are obliged to implement judgments by the ICJ, which are final and cannot be appealed.

In rare situations where a country refuses, the matter can be referred to the UN Security Council by the complaining country for further action.