The top United Nations Court on Monday will rule the three small islands in potential oil -rich water over a long -term dispute between Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.Since the beginning of the 1970s, two West African countries have squailed for more than 30-hectare (74-acade) islands and two small-low-bottom islets, cocotier and kangga.The islands themselves are small and virtually uninhabited, but are located in an area rich in oil and gas.The controversy is behind in all ways from 1900, when the then colonial powers France and Spain signed a treaty in Paris that established borders between the two countries.But Gabon believes that a subsequent treaty, 1974 Bata conference, then the sovereignty of the islands decided in their favor.Bata Convention “solves all sovereignty issues about the islands and border delimitation”, Mary-Madeline Ambornsuo, Honorary President of the Constitutional Court of Gabon, told the International Court of Court (ICJ) at the hearing in October.Equatorial Guinea argues that Gabon invaded the islands in 1972 and has been illegally occupied them since then.The lawyers of Equatorial Guinea rubbed the Bata Convention at the October hearing, saying that Gabon suddenly produced the document in 2003, surprised everyone.“No one had seen or heard about this alleged conference,” said Equatorial Guinea and Vice-Minister Domingo MBA assono of Hydrocarbon.“In addition, the documents presented were not a original, but only an informal photocopy,” said Assono.
‘Photocopy of a photocopy’:
Philip Sands, a lawyer representing Equatorial Guinea, dismissed Bata Convention as a “scrap of paper”.Sands said, “You are being asked to rule that a state can rely on photocopy of photocopy of an alleged document, of which the original can be found and no one of which was not mentioned or any dependence for three decades.”Equatorial Guinea has been asking for a original copy of the Bata Convention since 2003, so far in vain.MBORANTSUO admitted that “sadly, none of both parties can find the original documents”, given that it was designed in an era before computer and database.“The archives were badly managed due to many things – adverse climate, shortage of trained personnel, and lack of technology,” said MBORENTSUOs.Unlike most countries appearing before ICJ in the Hague, who agreed to ask judges for a decision in an attempt to find rules in the disputes between states, Guinea and Equatorial Guinea.The two countries have asked the court to decide which legal texts are valid – the Paris Treaty of 1900 or the Bata Conference of 1974.The ICJ will not agree which country should be given sovereignty on the islands.Equatorial Guinea’s Assono said, “We are convinced that the court’s decision will help our countries to resolve their outstanding disputes on sovereignty and borders, making their relations a permanent basis to flourish.”
