The ruling that will be announced on July 13 by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the highest legal body of the United Nations (UN), in the case of Nicaragua’s claim, which asks to define with Colombia the limits of its continental shelf, “must be favorable to our country,” says former Vice Chancellor José Pallais.
Through a press release published on its official website, the ICJ, based in The Hague, Holland, the Netherlands, announces that the reading of the ruling of the judges of the highest court on the “question of the delimitation of the platform continental between Nicaragua and Colombia, beyond 200 nautical miles from the Nicaraguan coast”, will be on July 13 at 3:00 in the afternoon, at the Peace Palace.
Former Vice Foreign Minister Pallais, a former politician and exiled to the US by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship, consulted by Article 66 Regarding the ruling that the ICJ will issue, he pointed out that said ruling “must be favorable to Nicaragua”, since previous rulings related to this issue have already been in favor of the Central American country, therefore, surprises should not be expected.
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The former diplomat and lawyer explained that Nicaragua appealed to the ICJ for this court to delimit with Colombia the continental platform that corresponds to Nicaragua, beyond 200 miles “which is the right over the seabed and subsoil”, something that does not have to do with surface waters or sovereign rights, or navigation, “it is the right to use the subsoil, the wealth that is in the subsoil and on the seabed of the continental platform that correspond to the country,” he said .
“This demand is a continuation of the previous ones, which have been deciding the territorial controversies between Colombia and Nicaragua, given the original Colombian claim to lock Nicaragua in the Caribbean, and deny it natural projection as part of its rights to the territory that belongs to it, based on to the Law of the Sea”, explains the jurist.
Pallais considers that the ICJ has a good support to favor the interests of Nicaragua, because it has already recognized those rights of projection and has already been defining how far Nicaragua’s rights go, how far it can be projected, and “whether they have been favorable or relatively favorable to our country, the previous rulings, that indicates that we have a great possibility that it will continue to be so, “analyzes the expert.
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This new ruling, if it is favorable as expected, according to international law, adds Pallais, will allow Nicaragua to carry out activities to explore and exploit resources, especially hydrocarbons on the seabed and subsoil. “There is a potential for the exploitation of natural gas, oil that could mean wealth for the country,” says the lawyer.
Insists that, from the technical and legal point of view, the verdict that will be known in a few days must be favorable to Nicaragua, due to the previous sentences because “one right supports the other” and since there are already sentences in favor of Nicaragua, the new ruling must be “continuous” in that sense.
However, Pallais warns that there could be a concern, and it is the constant position of diplomatic confrontation that the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega maintains with the international community.
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“My aspiration is that the professionalism of the judges prevail, as it should, and that the disenchantment caused by a policy of rupture in the international community, of constant diplomatic confrontation of the Daniel Ortega regime with very important players in the international community. We are not talking about the interests of a government, we are talking about the interests of the entire nation,” he stressed.
He recalled that the defense of Nicaragua’s maritime rights does not start with the Ortega government, but from Mrs. Violeta Barrios and the governments that followed her.
