It all started with a decree of the King of Spain, Carlos IV, on November 20, 1803. It dictated that the archipelago of San Andrés and Santa Catalina belonged to the Colombian region: these islands would no longer be under the control of the General Captaincy of Guatemala and would form part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada. Since then, Colombia and Nicaragua have fought over these islands and their territorial waters. Until this July, when the maritime struggle for control of the islands of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina has been resolved in favor of Colombia.
Norman Caldera, Nicaragua’s former foreign minister and representative of the country in the 2002 negotiations, admits to La Vanguardia that, “from an emotional point of view, I was in agreement with retaking the territory [maritime sovereignty], but, from a legal point of view, , we had no basis to make any claim.”
The discussions go back to 1928, when Colombia proposed to legally confirm its control over the islands ceded by Carlos IV. That year, Colombia’s possession of the San Andrés archipelago was recognized by Nicaragua through the Esguerra-Bárcenas treaty. However, some time later, Nicaragua rejected the validity of the treaty arguing that during its imposition the country was occupied by the United States, who made the decision to cede the maritime space to the Colombians. The Nicaraguan representatives also now point out that in 1928 the current Law of the Sea did not exist, which has protected maritime limits since 1958, and that, therefore, the treaty was not valid.
In 2001, Nicaragua launched its first lawsuit before the UN Supreme Court of Justice (ICJ) in order to establish maritime margins between the two countries. It was not until November 19, 2012 when the ICJ issued a sentence and set the limits between Colombia and Nicaragua: the judges granted the Central American country 75,000 kilometers in the Caribbean Sea and confirmed that the islands belong to Colombia.
In that first lawsuit, Caldera and his team used the Law of the Sea to try to recover maritime territory. According to the former foreign minister, “it was very difficult to argue that the territory belongs to us and, due to disagreements on both sides, it took ten years to reach the first sentence.”
Geographically, the islands are located in the middle of Nicaraguan territorial waters, but Colombia continued to patrol and fish. In 2013, Nicaragua filed a new lawsuit stating that Colombia violated maritime spaces. Following the ICJ ruling, Colombia ignored the court’s jurisdiction over boundaries and continued to sail and fish.
Finally, this 2023 Nicaragua resumed the debate with the intention of extending its sovereignty some 200 more nautical miles. The Government of Daniel Ortega resumed the case accusing Colombia of continuing to fish in its territory and recalled that the disputed islands are located in the marine territory of his country. The ICJ rejected the Nicaraguan request and did not allow them to expand their maritime sovereignty.
The court also denied that the archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina is within Nicaragua’s maritime border and stressed the division that it decreed in November 2012. However, Caldera stresses, this sentence obliges Colombia to respect the line of division.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the sentence a “great victory” for his country. On the other hand, the Ortega government declared that it “hopes that Colombia recognizes the value and effectiveness of all the judgments of the Court, and in particular the sentence handed down in 2012.” Caldera confirms that, for him, it was not the right thing to file a lawsuit to extend the country’s territory. “According to international law, the limits were already established since 2012; however, the Nicaraguan government decided to revive the dispute”.
It is what the sea has: it is never still.
