The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled in favor of Equatorial Guinea in a decades-long dispute with Gabon over three tiny islands. The West African countries claim the islands because of potentially present oil and gas reserves.
The two countries have been arguing over the mini-archipelago since the 1970s. Equatorial Guinea claims the islands based on a treaty from 1900, which established the colonial borders between Spain and France. Equatorial Guinea, at the time a Spanish colony, was then given control over the islands.
Gabon invokes a convention from 1974, in which the ownership of the islands would have been re-regulated. The ICJ now rules that this convention is not legally valid. This has mainly to do with the fact that the original document is untraceable.
Equatorial Guinea doubts whether the agreement ever existed at all. Gabon suddenly came up with a copy of the convention in 2003. The neighboring country stated that it was unaware of the existence of that treaty.
It is not yet clear what the exact consequences of the ruling are. Equatorial Guinea claimed during the case that Gabon had illegally occupied the islands. The two countries will sit down to discuss the implementation.
The islands are located approximately 20 kilometers off the coast around the border between Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. The largest island, Mbanié, with its 30 hectares, is smaller than the Vondelpark in Amsterdam. The smallest island, Conga, is smaller than a football field.