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Maritime Boundaries Delimitation and Dispute Resolution in Africa

Africa's borders are bestride with many challenges ranging from religious and terrorist movements to cattle rustling, military conflicts to human trafficking. The challenges are endless, but whether the boundary disputes are terrestrial or maritime, they are mostly about security and prestige. Growing human population, political awareness and environmental challenges mean that the problems are likely to heighten, unless they are resolved. Despite the provisions of UNCLOS, Africa has several unresolved maritime boundary disputes. In this light, this article aims to examine the African situation, and discuss the challenges involved in the delimitation and management of maritime boundaries in Africa. This article presents the issues, causes, essence and the security imperative of maritime boundary disputes in Africa.
At the moment, the African continent is characterized by lots of maritime boundary disputes. And unless these are resolved through negotiation or other diplomatic measures and acceptable means, it will jeopardize the continent’s short and long term implementation of maritime policies and strategies. African countries must treat and make a priority of boundary dispute resolution if imperative and integral maritime economic development must take place.
Natural resources are at the heart of maritime border disputes in African coastal region. The importance of maritime boundaries in Africa has become attractive with the enlargement of national limits of maritime jurisdiction over the past six decades or so. A unit of sea may be worth more than a unit of unproductive land, particularly when it contains oil and gas on the subsoil or on the seabed. The resultant effect is to make boundary delimitation a major responsibility for the African coastal states, and relatively few of them have a full set of maritime boundaries. “The existence of overlapping claims may inadvertently lead to disputes, e.g., if fishermen from one side are arrested by the coastguard of the other side or if traces of oil are discovered in an area of overlapping claims”. For Africa, only about 30 percent of its borders are demarcated and this naturally is raising tension between countries.
Resolving African maritime boundary disputes has political and economic outcome for the nation states involved with a possibility of boosting regional partnership, collaboration and synergy towards regional and continental actions.

Article by Theodore Okonkwo from  University of Port-Harcourt, Port-Harcourt, Nigeria

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