The International Court of Justice will on Monday announce a verdict in a maritime territorial dispute that has strained relations between Gabon and Equatorial Guinea for over half a century.
At the heart of the case are three small islands — Mbanie, Cocotier, and Conga — lying in potentially resource-rich waters off the coast of Central Africa. Though uninhabited and modest in size, the islands are located in a region believed to hold significant oil and gas reserves, making them strategically important to both countries.
The roots of the disagreement date back to 1900, when France and Spain, the colonial powers at the time, signed a treaty in Paris outlining territorial boundaries in the region. Gabon, however, asserts that a later agreement, the 1974 Bata Convention, overrides the colonial-era treaty and affirms its sovereignty over the islands.
Speaking during ICJ hearings last October, Marie-Madeleine Mborantsuo, honorary president of Gabon’s constitutional court, argued that the Bata Convention resolved all outstanding border and sovereignty issues.
Equatorial Guinea has rejected that claim, accusing Gabon of seizing the islands in 1972 and occupying them illegally ever since. Government representatives also questioned the authenticity of the Bata Convention, noting that the document only surfaced in 2003 and has yet to be presented in its original form.
“This was a surprise to everyone,” said Domingo Mba Esono, Equatorial Guinea’s Vice-Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons. “What was submitted wasn’t even an original—just a photocopy, unauthenticated and unverified.”
British lawyer Philippe Sands, representing Equatorial Guinea, dismissed the document as unreliable. “The court is being asked to consider a photocopy of a photocopy of a document that went unmentioned for thirty years,” he told the court. “That is not a credible basis for resolving a territorial dispute.”
Gabon has acknowledged that neither party has been able to produce the original version of the 1974 agreement. Mborantsuo cited poor archival management, lack of technology, and harsh environmental conditions as reasons for the missing documentation.
Unlike many ICJ cases where one country brings a complaint against another, both Gabon and Equatorial Guinea jointly submitted this dispute to the court in a rare show of bilateral cooperation, seeking a neutral judgment on which legal agreement holds precedence—the 1900 colonial treaty or the 1974 Bata Convention.
The ICJ will not decide who owns the islands outright but will instead clarify which legal framework should guide any resolution.
“We believe the court’s ruling will lay the groundwork for settling our differences peacefully and strengthening the relationship between our countries,” said Esono.
The verdict is expected to set a significant precedent in how historical and post-colonial agreements are interpreted in modern African boundary disputes, particularly those involving high-stakes resource zones.