Nicaragua slams Colombia in sea row at UN court

Nicaragua accused Colombia at the UN’s top court on Monday of threatening the “public order of the ocean” in a bitter and years-long row over sea borders.

The Latin American rivals are battling it out at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over a 2012 ruling that gave Nicaragua a large swathe of the Caribbean extending 200 nautical miles (230 miles, 370 kilometres) from its coastline.

Nicaragua lodged a fresh case at the Hague-based tribunal in 2013, accusing Colombia’s navy and air force of still prowling the same fish- and oil-rich region.

“Colombia’s rejection of the customary law… poses a fundamental challenge to the public order of the ocean,” Alex Oude Elferink, a lawyer representing Nicaragua, told the court.

“Colombia had nothing to say in reply.”

Another lawyer for Nicaragua, Vaughan Lowe, said the country “unequivocally” asserted its rights to the disputed section of ocean.

Although there are no land borders between Nicaragua, located in Central America, and Colombia, part of South America, diplomatic relations have been strained for almost a century over disputed maritime limits.

Nicaragua finally took Colombia to the court in 2001, and in 2012 it won several thousand square kilometres of territory in the Caribbean that had previously been Colombian.

A furious Colombia, which was left with only seven islets, said at the time it would no longer recognise the court’s jurisdiction on border disputes.

Nicaragua then went back to the court in 2013 alleging violations of the judgment by Colombia.