US Edition
ICJ Backs E.Guinea in Spat with Gabon over Oil-Rich Islands
- On May 19, 2025, the International Court of Justice delivered a verdict awarding ownership of the Mbanie, Conga, and Cocoteros islands near Gabon's coastline to Equatorial Guinea.
- The court’s ruling relied on a 1900 treaty signed in Paris that allocated colonial territories between France and Spain, assigning the islands to Spain, whose sovereignty over them was transferred to Equatorial Guinea when it gained independence in 1968.
- Gabon controlled the islands since 1972 after evicting Equatorial Guinean troops, relying on a 1974 Bata Convention that the court rejected as lacking legal force due to absence of an original document.
- Equatorial Guinea's lawyer Philippe Sands described the Bata Convention as unreliable "scraps of paper," highlighting that the original treaty is missing, while the country's vice-minister, Domingo Mba Esono, stated that the convention was unfamiliar to officials and only an unauthenticated photocopy was submitted.
- The ruling ends a decades-long dispute over oil-rich, largely uninhabited islands, requiring Gabonese troops to leave and prompting both nations to negotiate their future relations.
53 Articles
53 Articles
UN top court sides with Equatorial Guinea in island dispute with Gabon
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) sided with Equatorial Guinea on Monday in a decades-long maritime boundary dispute with Gabon concerning three islands and their potentially oil-rich waters. The ICJ ruled that Equatorial Guinea has sovereignty over the islands and the surrounding waters pursuant to the 1900 Treaty of Paris between France and Spain, and that Gabon must withdraw any military personnel stationed on the islands. The dispute …
UN court backs Equatorial Guinea in disputed islands case with Gabon
The decision effectively hands the islands to Equatorial Guinea. The countries brought their dispute to The International Court of Justice in 2021, asking judges to determine what legal agreement settles the possession of the oil-rich islands
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- 35% of the sources lean Left, 35% of the sources are Center
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