Case concerning passage through the great belt

Abstract

In May 1991 Finland filed an application with the International Court of Justice concerning a Danish plan to build a high‐level bridge over the main navigational channel of the Great Belt Strait. Finland claimed that the bridge would hamper the passage of Finnish ships, drilling rigs in particular, between the Baltic and North Seas, and that this violated a right guaranteed to Finland by a number of international treaties and customary international law. Denmark insisted that it had the sovereign right to build the bridge and that the bridge did not, in fact, hamper any existing passage. According to Denmark, Finland had in any case reacted too late. The Court never dealt with the merits of the case, however, as it was settled out of court in September 1992. This article provides an exposition of the Finnish and Danish legal cases as well as the author's assessment of them.