Maritime Disputes Settlements In The Seas East Of The Gulf Of Guinea

Inconsistencies with respect to the application of customary international law with respect to maritime configurations and disputes lead to the coming into being of the Law of the Sea Convention in 1982.The UNLOSC was meant as a standard reference in national and international practices relating to maritime issues.The coming into being of the UNLOSC however would not be expected to dissipate inherent disputes pertaining to the diverse intricacies of maritime delimitations and usage,In the Gulf of Guinea which is located in the South Atlantic,natural and historical factors coupled with early inadequacies in delimitations have further highlighted the many inconsistencies among UNLOSC signatory coastal state practice?This research would encumber on adjacent maritime boundaries with respect to eight countries in Nigeria,Cameroon,Equatorial Guinea,Sao Tome & Principe,Gabon,Congo Brazzaville,The Democratic Republic of Congo & Angola.The closely related maritime limits involved in this research have geographical and historical peculiarities which makes maritime delimitations of the territorial sea and contiguous zone,the EEZ and Continental Shelf highly uncertain.All countries as indicated supra are however signatories to the UNLOSC which could be expected to make maritime configuration less problematic due to inherent obligations as contained in the UNLOSC. However the nature of peculiar natural geomorphological factors coupled with peculiar discordant vestiges in effectives and legal title makes the case otherwise.These legal discrepancies are made the more contentious by the bountiful hydro-carbon deposits located within inteflapping territorial seas and the more extended maritime 200 nautical mile zone in the EEZ and the superjacent Continental Shelf.It is certain that due to interlapping justifiable claims,the basic fundamentals such as in the forms of baselines to be used should be consistent with acceptable customary international law as presaged also by the UNLOSC.In the absence of an international approach to the delimitation of the seas as well as its general usage between these coastal states sharing a conundrum in common,disputes would be conflagrated making the inherent anomaly the more difficult to solve.The UNLOSC does provide specifically for the settlement of disputes between states apurtuned to the ocean and landlocked states as well.These guidelines would be expected to be used interposingly in an effort to bring about an equitable settlement of disputes in the seas east of the Gulf of Guinea.This would need concerted effort by all eight coastal states in question to build upon consensus within the framework of the United Nations and international law which should keep dispute imperatives sublime.The disputes in the Gulf of Guinea have been conflagrated due to need for the exploitation in natural resources of the seas.Among these is fishing which is a commensurate:foreign income earner to these countries. However the intensity of the disputes in the yet to be delimited maritime zones is augmented by the discovery of oil in rentable quantities in the Gulf of Guinea especially since the initial exploitation in Nigerian waters as early as in 1959It would seem highly unlikely that future references to international arbitration or on an ad-hoc basis or yet still within joint exploitation modalities would de-emphasize this peculiarity in contentions due to concurrent claims on in situ deposits.These claims are however not peculiar to the Gulf of Guinea as similar imperatives else where have led to case referrals to the International Court of Justice ICJ.The Gulf of Guinea in scope would encumber on international law a burden in justification due to the cross and interlapping claims which could seemingly be justified based upon various criteria.In the absence of the unalienable historical qtiantum which would be prominent in inherent awards in treaty's,a combination of acquiesce and legal title of the maritime boundaries would make claims verged on de novo claims uncommon in most instances in disputes,Maritime dispute contentions have traditionally lead to the deterioration of the marine environment in pollution and the absence of the preservation and management of the living resources due to the absence of impelling obligations by maritime states.This has been the case in the Gulf of Guinea.The fast changing ecosystem has invariably had a negative effect in the customary usage of the seas by apurturning and adjacent coastal states as well as in its miscellaneous general usage.Gulf of Guinea coastal States would need the creation of viable parity by which delimitations could be ascertained.The Cameroon v. Nigeria-Equatorial Guinea case to the ICJ had been the first in the use of an international tribunal in the settlement of its disputes.Equally likely in the nearest future could be a reference by Equatorial Guinea to the ICJ or the International Tribunal of the Law,of the Sea Tribunal ITLOS due the absence of practical consensus with Gabon with respect to the Corisco Bay area.Finally conflicts in the Gulf of Guinea tend to involve more than two coastal states within interlapping seas.As encumbered in the intervention by Equatorial Guinea in the Cameroon v.Nigeria case,such inherencies would therefore make the region similar to the Caribbean seas,the South China seas and adjacent seas and to some extent in the Bay of Bengal.Thus in the absence of collective settlements involving more than two coastal states in referrals,third state interventions would be more likely.