Case Analysis: Case Concerning Land and Maritime Boundary (Cameroon v. Nigeria): Provisional Measures, Order of 15 March 1996

Abstract

By an application filed on 29 March 1994, Cameroon instituted proceedings against Nigeria, relying on the declarations under Article 36(2) of the Statute of the Court, made by both states without reservations. The dispute, according to the Application, related “essentially to the question of sovereignty over the Bakassi Peninsula”, where, “since the end of 1993”, the Nigerian troops were “occupying several Cameroonian localities”. Cameroon also requested the Court “to determine the course of the maritime boundary between the two states beyond the line fixed in 1975”. In an ‘Additional Application’, filed on 6 June 1994, Cameroon extended the subject of the dispute “essentially to the question of sovereignty over a part of the territory of Cameroon in the area of Lake Chad”, which had become the object of “the official […] claim […] by […] Nigeria quite recently, for the first time”; and also requested the Court “to specify definitely” the whole frontier line from Lake Chad to the sea, and to examine the two Applications as a single case. In its counter-memorial, filed within the prescribed time-limit (18 December 1995), Nigeria raised objections to the jurisdiction of the Court and the admissibility of the Cameroonian claims, whereupon the proceedings on the merits were suspended and the President of the Court fixed 15 May 1996 as the time-limit within which Cameroon might present its observations on the Nigerian objections.