Ruling on Sudan oil-rich area of Abyei sets stage for next contest

Under the new ruling, the Abyei area has been shortened by 70 km to the east and by 10 km to the west. And the area was slightly reduced downwards.
As with many court judgments, the devil in this case is in the dissent. A dissent is usually a critic of the majority.

As Charles Hughes, a one-time US Supreme Court Chief Justice, is often quoted saying, dissenting opinions constitute an appeal to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of a future day, when a later decision may possibly correct the error into which the dissenting judge believes the court to have been betrayed.

And in this case, reading the court’s sole dissent, it becomes apparent that for the judges, as with the experts before them, and the Dinka and Misseriya at a peace conference in 1966, the Abyei boundaries were never going to be easy to demarcate.

Verdict is binding
For instance, the ABC drew the northern line in an area that was not settled by anyone, the Goz. While demarcating the northern boundary, the experts based on clues from administrative officials and human geography.

The Court rejected that boundary, instead lowering it to 10’10 North. It was at that latitude that the experts found evidence of Dinka Ngok presence, at least, around 1905. Court ruled that this is the “best defensible” line in the circumstances. And so it now is. The verdict is binding and final.

Yet, the dissenting judge accused Court of having “a lax and novel standard for drawing boundary lines [which] no government can or should accept it.” The ruling, he said, has been built on “sand”.

“To construct straight lines on the basis of approximate evidence and rough areas is an affront to the science of delimitation and no country should accept such delimitation,” said Al-Khawsneh.