Colombia leaves arbitration treaty after court ruling

Reflecting Colombia's anger at a 19 November ruling by the International Court at the Hague that ceded part of its sea territory to Nicaragua, President Juan Manuel Santos announced on 28 November that Colombia would leave the 1948 Bogotá Pact that gave the Court authority to arbitrate in frontier disputes. Santos made the announcement at gathering of coffee growers who cheered him, and said the decision was to prevent a repetition of such a ruling. He said this did not mean Colombia was no longer committed to peacefully resolving such disputes as the Pact demands of signatories, but that in keeping with "the highest national interests" land and sea frontiers should be set by treaties "as has been the juridical tradition in Colombia," RCN Radio reported on 28 November. The ruling had meant to settle a dispute over sea frontiers, but considerably reduced access to rich fishing waters for inhabitants of the San Andrés Archipelago, a range of islands and dependent cays belonging to Colombia, which in some cases would become surrounded by Nicaraguan waters. There was also concern in Colombia that Nicaragua would later explore and drill for oil in some of the waters given it, which are now a protected natural zone. Santos said Colombia "denounced" the treaty before the Organization of American States on 27 November, which effectively meant it was leaving. The pact or American Treaty on Pacific Settlement, which entered into force in 1949 and was ratified by 15 American states, foresees a range of diplomatic and legal means for resolving disputes, including arbitration by The Hague. The decision apparently did not affect Colombia's obligation to respect this ruling and its formal departure would be in a year. But the broadcaster cited Vice-President Marcelino Garzon as saying that "an understanding and agreement" was now needed between Colombia and Nicaragua that would "favour the fishing population." He said the dispute was now "in the hands of the United Nations."