Portugal Colonial - ICJ backs E.Guinea in spat with Gabon over oil-rich islands

The two west African nations have been squabbling over the 30-hectare (74-acre) island of Mbanie and two smaller low-lying islets, Cocotiers and Conga, since the early 1970s.

The islands themselves are tiny and virtually uninhabited but lie in an area potentially rich in oil and gas.

The dispute dates all the way back to 1900, when then colonial powers France and Spain signed a treaty in Paris setting out the borders between the two countries.

But Gabon argued that a later treaty, the 1974 Bata Convention, then fixed the islands' sovereignty in their favour.

However, the International Court of Justice ruled that the Bata Convention "invoked by the Gabonese Republic is not a treaty having the force of law... and does not constitute a legal title."

It said that the legal title to the islands was held by Spain, which then passed to Equatorial Guinea upon independence in 1968.

Unlike most countries appearing before the ICJ in The Hague, which rules in disputes between states, Guinea and Equatorial Guinea agreed to ask judges for a ruling in an effort to find an amical solution.

The two countries asked the court to decide which legal texts are valid -- the Paris Treaty of 1900 or the Bata Convention of 1974.

Reacting to the ruling, a representative for Gabon, Guy Rossatanga-Rignault, said it was now down to the parties to negotiate in the light of the ruling.

"Gabon and Equatorial Guinea have to live side-by-side, we can't move away from each other. Therefore we will have to talk it over to solve all these problems," he told reporters.

The representatives for Equatorial Guinea declined to speak to reporters at the Peace Palace, the seat of the ICJ.

However, in hearings in October, Equatorial Guinea argued that Gabon invaded the islands in 1972 and had occupied them illegally ever since.

Lawyers for the country rubbished the Bata Convention in the October hearings, saying Gabon suddenly produced the document in 2003, surprising everyone.

"No one had seen or heard of this supposed convention," Domingo Mba Esono, Vice-Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons from Equatorial Guinea, told ICJ judges.

"Moreover, the document presented was not an original but was only an unauthenticated photocopy," said Esono.

Philippe Sands, a lawyer representing Equatorial Guinea, dismissed the Bata Convention as "scraps of paper".

"You are being asked to rule that a state can rely on a photocopy of a photocopy of a purported document, the original of which cannot be found and of which no mention was made or any reliance placed for three decades," said Sands.

Equatorial Guinea has been asking for an original copy of the Bata Convention since 2003, so far in vain.

- 'Badly managed' -

But Marie-Madeleine Mborantsuo, honorary president of Gabon's constitutional court, argued that the Bata Convention "resolves all sovereignty issues regarding the islands and border delimitation".

She admitted that "sadly, neither of the two parties can find the original document", noting it was drawn up in an era before computers and databases.

"Archives were badly managed because of a number of things -- unfavourable climate, a lack of trained personnel and lack of technology," said Mborantsuo.

The court ruled that neither country seemed to regard the Bata Convention as binding upon them, meaning the court did not consider it the correct title in force.

O.Gaspar--PC