The Saga of the 1858 Treaty of Limits: The Cases Against Costa Rica

Application instituting proceedings, 28 July 1988, para 23(a).

Border and Transborder Armed Actions (Nicaragua v. Costa Rica), Order of 19 August 1987, ICJ Reports 1987, p. 182.

Maritime Delimitation in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua), Application instituting proceedings, 25 February 2014.

Dispute regarding Navigational and Related Rights (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua), Judgment, ICJ Reports 2009, p. 213 (hereinafter ‘Navigational and Related Rights (Judgment)’).

Certain Activities Carried Out by Nicaragua in the Border Area (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua), Joinder of Proceedings, Order of 17 April 2013, ICJ Reports 2013, p. 166 (hereinafter ‘Certain Activities (Joinder)’); Construction of a Road in Costa Rica along the San Juan River (Nicaragua v. Costa Rica), Joinder of Proceedings, Order of 17 April 2013, ICJ Reports 2013, p. 184 (hereinafter ‘Construction of a Road (Joinder)’).

Certain Activities carried out by Nicaragua in the Border Area (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua); Construction of a Road in Costa Rica along the San Juan River (Nicaragua v. Costa Rica), Judgment of 16 December 2015 (hereinafter ‘Certain Activities; Construction of a Road (Judgment)’).

In Certain Activities and Construction of a Road, both States relied not only on the 1858 Treaty, but also on obligations arising under general international law in respect of the environment.

Land Boundary in the Northern Part of Isla Portillos (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua), Application instituting proceedings, 16 January 2017, para 3. In its Application, Costa Rica requested the Court to join the case concerning the land boundary and the case concerning the Maritime Delimitation in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua), which has been pending since 2014. Costa Rica opines: ‘The close relationship between this case and the case concerning Maritime Delimitation in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua) will be readily apparent. It is manifest that the two cases should be joined. The two cases concern the same parties. They both concern the same geographic area where the two countries meet the Caribbean Sea. Moreover, the question of the present proceeding is closely related to the dispute in the Maritime Delimitation case, in that the two parties express different views as to the starting point of the maritime boundary in the Caribbean Sea. […] In order to proceed to the delimitation of maritime areas of the Parties in the Caribbean Sea, the prior settlement of this dispute is necessary.’ (ibid., para 24). The Court joined the two proceedings in its Order of 2 February 2017. Recalling its ‘broad margin of discretion’ under Article 47 of the Rules of Court and its previous case law (Order of 2 February 2017, para 16), the Court pointed out that ‘in view of the claims made by Costa Rica in the case concerning Isla Portillos and the close link between those claims and certain aspects of the dispute in the case concerning Maritime Delimitation, the proceedings in the two cases should be joined. Such a joinder will allow the Court to address simultaneously the totality of the various interrelated and contested issues raised by the Parties, including any questions of fact or law that are common to the disputes presented.’ (Order of 2 February 2017, para 17).

Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Salvador/Honduras: Nicaragua intervening), Judgment, ICJ Reports 1992, p. 386, para 4.

Award of the President of the United States in regard to the Validity of the Treaty of Limits between Costa Rica and Nicaragua of 15 July 1858, Decision of 22 March 1888, RIAA, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 197–198 (hereinafter ‘Cleveland Award’).

The Central American Court of Justice noted in 1916 that ‘since ancient times, [the San Juan River] has been looked upon as the artery that would some day be availed of to give life to the long projected canal’ (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua, Judgment, 13 September 1916, reprinted in 11 AJIL 181 (1917), p. 221 (hereinafter ‘Costa Rica v. Nicaragua (1916 Judgment)’).

Navigational and Related Rights, Memorial of Costa Rica, Vol. 2, Annex 7, p. 55 (English translation prepared by Nicaragua for the Cleveland Arbitration).

See Kasikili/Sedudu Island (Botswana/Namibia), Judgment, ICJ Reports 1999, p. 1062, para 24 (‘Treaties or conventions which define boundaries in watercourses nowadays usually refer to the thalweg as the boundary when the watercourse is navigable and to the median line between the two banks when it is not, although it cannot be said that practice has been fully consistent.’) See also Frontier Dispute (Benin/Niger), Judgment, ICJ Reports 2005, p. 149, para 149.

Certain Activities; Construction of a Road (Judgment), supra n. 6, para 71.

Navigational and Related Rights (Judgment), supra n. 4, p. 236, para 44. The Spanish original provides: ‘La República de Nicaragua tendrá exclusivamente el dominio y sumo imperio sobre las aguas del río de San Juan desde su salida del Lago, hasta su desembocadura en el Atlántico […]’.

Ibid. The Spanish original provides: ‘[P]ero la República de Costa Rica tendrá en dichas aguas los derechos perpetuos de libre navegación, desde la expresada desembocadura hasta tres millas inglesas antes de llegar al Castillo Viejo, con objetos de comercio, ya sea con Nicaragua ó al interior de Costa Rica, por los ríos de San Carlos ó Sarapiquí, ó cualquiera otra vía procedente de la parte que en la ribera del San Juan se establece corresponder á esta República. Las embarcaciones de uno ú otro país podrán indistintamente atracar en las riberas del río en la parte en que la navegación es común, sin cobrarse ninguna clase de impuestos, á no ser que se establezcan de acuerdo entre ambos Gobiernos.’

Award of the President of the United States in regard to the Validity of the Treaty of Limits between Costa Rica and Nicaragua of 15 July 1858, Decision of 22 March 1888, RIAA, Vol. XXVIII, p. 193 (Report of Assistant Secretary of State, G. L. Rives) (hereinafter ‘Rives Report’).

Article 46 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties provides:

Article 46. Provisions of Internal Law Regarding Competence to Conclude Treaties

1. A State may not invoke the fact that its consent to be bound by a treaty has been expressed in violation of a provision of its internal law regarding competence to conclude treaties as invalidating its consent unless that violation was manifest and concerned a rule of its internal law of fundamental importance.

2. A violation is manifest if it would be objectively evident to any State conducting itself in the matter in accordance with normal practice and in good faith.

See Navigational and Related Rights, Counter-Memorial of Nicaragua, Vol. 1, p. 122, para 3.1.49 and Vol. II, Annex 72.

The first three issues concerned the course of the land boundary as defined under the 1858 Treaty.

Article VII of the 1886 Esquivel-Roman Treaty provides: ‘Whatever the decision of the Arbitration be, it shall be held to be obligatory between the Contracting Parties. No other recourse shall be admitted, and it shall come into force 30 days after it has been communicated to both Governments or to their Representative.’

1886 Esquivel-Roman Treaty, supra n. 19, Article X. Article X provides further:

These measures, and the demarcation to which they refer, shall be done within 30 months from the date of the naming of the Commissioners.

These Commissioners shall be allowed to depart from the line laid down in the Treaty one mile in order to lay down natural lines or lines more distinguishable, but this deviation shall only be allowed when all the Commissioners are of one accord as to the point or points to be substituted.

Navigational and Related Rights, Memorial of Costa Rica, Vol. 2, Annex 7, p. 55 (English translation prepared by Nicaragua for the Cleveland Arbitration).

Award of 30 September 1897, RIAA, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 215–221 (hereinafter ‘Alexander First Award’); Award of 20 December 1897, RIAA, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 223–225 (hereinafter ‘Alexander Second Award’); Award of 22 March 1898, RIAA, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 227–230 (hereinafter ‘Alexander Third Award’).

Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v. Kenya), Preliminary Objections, Judgment of 2 February 2017, para 63.

The International Court of Justice noted in this respect that ‘the navigability of watercourses varies greatly, depending on prevailing natural conditions. Those conditions can prevent the use of the watercourse in question by large vessels carrying substantial cargoes, but permit light flat-bottomed vessels to navigate’ (Kasikili/Sedudu Island (Botswana/Namibia), Judgment, ICJ Report 1999, p. 1071, para 40).

Reproduced in Costa Rica v. Nicaragua (1916 Judgment), p. 190.

Costa Rica v. Nicaragua (1916 Judgment), p. 219. See also ibid., p. 224 (‘the Cañas-Jerez Treaty, far from having expired, stands ratified in its full vigor by the arbitral award of President Cleveland, to which decision the high parties concede the legal value of a perfect and obligatory treaty’).

Navigational and Related Rights (Judgment), supra n. 4, p. 231, para 27.

Navigational and Related Rights (Judgment), supra n. 4, p. 231, para 27. See also Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v. Kenya), Preliminary Objections, Judgment of 2 February 2017, para 63; Question of the Delimitation of the Continental Shelf between Nicaragua and Colombia beyond 200 nautical miles from the Nicaraguan Coast (Nicaragua v. Colombia), Preliminary Objections, Judgment of 17 March 2016, para 33; Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), Merits, Judgment, ICJ Reports 2007, pp. 109–10, para 160; Territorial Dispute (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya/Chad), Judgment, ICJ Reports 1994, pp. 21–2, para 41; Oil Platforms (Islamic Republic of Iran v. United States of America), Preliminary Objections, Judgment, ICJ Reports 1996, p. 812, para 23.

Navigational and Related Rights (Judgment), supra n. 4, p. 237, para 47.

Certain Activities; Construction of a Road (Judgment), supra n. 6, para 65.

Certain Activities Carried Out by Nicaragua in the Border Area (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua), Provisional Measures, Order of 8 March 2011, ICJ Reports 2011, p. 27, para 86(1).

Certain Activities Carried Out by Nicaragua in the Border Area (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua); Construction of a Road in Costa Rica along the San Juan River (Nicaragua v. Costa Rica), Provisional Measures, Order of 22 November 2013, ICJ Reports 2013, p. 369, para 59(2)(A).

Certain Activities; Construction of a Road (Judgment), supra n. 6, paras 169–171.

Certain Activities (Joinder), supra n. 5 and Construction of a Road (Joinder), supra n. 5. See the contribution of Sobenes E below.

Certain Activities; Construction of a Road (Judgment), supra n. 6, paras 162 and 229(6).

Maritime Delimitation in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua).