By William
Yaw Owusu
Wednesday,
September 27, 2017
Ghana was going to lose an estimated $49
billion if the tribunal that adjudicated on the maritime boundary dispute had
ruled in favour of Cote d’Ivoire.
However, the Special Chamber of the
International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, (ITLOS), sitting in Hamburg,
Germany, declined to order the payment of compensation to Cote d’Ivoire.
Experts say the international court would most
likely have ordered Ghana to pay reparation to Cote d’Ivoire from the date it
(Ghana) commenced the drilling of oil in commercial quantities in 2010.
The dispute concerning the delimitation of the
maritime boundary between Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire in the Atlantic Ocean was
concluded last Saturday with the judgement unanimously in favour of Ghana.
Ghana filed the claim in 2014 after about 10
negotiations with Cote d’Ivoire over the maritime boundary had failed.
The West African neighbour then filed a
counter claim, including reparation, whilst at the same time laying claim to
portions of huge oil and gas reserves located around the maritime boundary
between the two countries in the Western Region.
Final
Boundary
The Special Chamber ruled that to delimit the
new maritime boundary, it would use a new Land Boundary Terminus (LBT) that it
had set at BP55plus, thus rejecting the different LBTs (geographical
coordinates of BP55 in the case of Ghana and 168 degrees azimuth line put
forward by Cote d’Ivoire).
In effect, the court has generated a new base
point with which to draw the final boundary, which it said is an Equidistance
Line Boundary covering the Territorial Sea - the Exclusive Economic Zone in the
area beyond 200 nautical miles - and experts have said it looks good for Ghana
as far as exploration of oil and gas is concerned.
Per the judgement, Cote d’Ivoire has lost
almost every claim against Ghana, except the order by the Special Tribunal for
the two countries to re-demarcate the maritime boundary; but will be of no
significance as far as the huge claims put forward by Ghana’s western neighbour
are concerned.
“The new and final maritime boundary line
protects Ghana’s existing concessions,” an unnamed source told DAILY GUIDE
immediately after the judgement, adding, “It protects all areas belonging to
Ghana which go up to the 200 nautical miles limit in the area beyond 200
nautical miles up to 350 nautical miles.”
Tacit
Agreement
Ghana appeared to have lost the argument of
Tacit Agreement moved against Cote d’Ivoire, which it said confirmed the full
scope of over 50 years of joint activities between the two countries regarding
the maritime boundary.
Although Ghana lost that argument, it turned
out that it was the display of the maps brought by Ghana that largely aided the
Special Tribunal to come to the conclusion that the maritime boundary line
should be drawn using the BP55plus coordinate.
Cote d’Ivoire, in its quest to get the
maritime boundary re-demarcated, tried to convince the court that Jomoro in the
Jomoro District of the Western Region, is an island or a kind of a peninsula,
but the court dismissed the claim saying the Ivoirians themselves had always
recognized the fact that Jomoro has been Ghana’s bonafide territory.
Consequential
Orders
The Special Tribunal summed up the whole
judgement in seven key points and in all of them, it was unanimous in
dismissing the case brought by Cote d’Ivoire.
It unanimously found out that it has
jurisdiction to delimit the maritime boundary between the parties in the
territorial sea, in the exclusive economic zone and on the continental shelf -
both within and beyond 200 nm.
The tribunal also unanimously found that there
is no tacit agreement between the parties to delimit their territorial sea,
exclusive economic zone and continental shelf both within and beyond 200 nm,
and rejected Ghana’s claim that Côte d’Ivoire was estopped from objecting to
the customary equidistance boundary.
Case
History
When Ghana discovered oil in commercial
quantities in 2007, Cote d’Ivoire said Ghana was straying into its waters in
the course of the exploration exercise at West Cape Three Points.
Cote d’Ivoire came again with a renewed set of
claims in 2010, including compensation from Ghana for entering into its
territory when the Dzata-1 Deepwater Well was discovered by Vanco.
Ghana then constituted the Ghana Boundary
Commission in March 2010, after Cote d’Ivoire had petitioned the United Nations
over the oil exploratory activities and requested for a demarcation of the
maritime boundary.
After about 10 high-level negotiations between
Ghana and Code d’Ivoire had yielded no dividends, Ghana filed a petition before
ITLOS in 2014, asking the special tribunal to look into the matter and bring
finality to it.
Cote d’Ivoire responded, adding a
counter-claim, including the payment of reparation from Ghana and appealed to
the special tribunal to suspend all activities on the disputed area until the
final determination of the case.
The first ruling given by ITLOS was in 2015
when it placed a moratorium on new projects that were being undertaken by
Ghana, but said the old projects could continue.
The moratorium prevented Tullow Oil from
drilling additional 13 wells. The company drilled 11 wells in Ghana’s first oil
field.
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