At the same time, in a statement released on Friday, they reaffirmed the fraternity between Colombia and the Central American country.
They called the outcome of this dispute a success and saluted “the patriotic position of the democratic government of Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez”, and the legal team that covered the defense of the country’s territorial integrity.
They stated that “after the verdict, the time has come to review border policy in the Caribbean, based on the rulings of the International Court of Justice and aimed at defending the rights of the Rizal communities in the Colombian archipelago.”
They made it clear that this requires a constructive dialogue with Nicaragua that is free from prejudices that enhance cooperation and integration between both peoples and allow the promotion between the two countries of an independent and sovereign Caribbean policy away from subjection to imperial geopolitics and strengthen Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace.
On the 13th, the President of the UN’s principal judicial body, Justice Joan Donoghue, noted that Nicaragua “has no right to a line extending within 200 nautical miles” calculated from the baseline from which the breadth of its territorial sea is measured.
Nicaragua claimed to delimit its continental shelf in the Caribbean, claiming rights to the seabed and subsoil beyond the 200 nautical miles defined by international law, but this extension meant an overlap with the Colombian continental shelf in the San Andres archipelago.
In 2001, the Central American country sued the International Court of Justice, and it was resolved in 2012 when that body awarded it about 75,000 square kilometers in the Caribbean Sea, but ratified Colombia’s sovereignty over the archipelago.
Colombia refused to abide by the ruling and even denounced the Bogotá Charter. In response, Nicaragua sued its neighbor again in 2013, before the International Court of Justice to demand that the nation stop violating its maritime spaces.
Colombia has opposed Managua claiming it affects the lives of the Rizal people who live off artisanal fishing in these lands.
In April 2022, the ICJ ruled that “Colombia had violated its international obligation to respect Nicaragua’s rights and jurisdiction over its exclusive economic zone, by interfering with Nicaraguan fishing and research activities and Nicaraguan vessels,” the court said at the time.
Yesterday, Petro stated that he is open to dialogue with his Nicaraguan counterpart, Daniel Ortega, on the rights of the Raizal communities who fish in Nicaraguan waters in the Caribbean.
ode/otf
“Award-winning alcohol trailblazer. Hipster-friendly internetaholic. Twitter ninja. Infuriatingly humble beer lover. Pop culture nerd.”