Colombia Should Accept the Verdict of the Hague, Expert Says

Colombia should accept the verdict of the Court in The Hague on the maritime boundary dispute with Nicaragua and obey the principles of international law enshrined in the Constitution of the country, said lawyer Bernard Vela.

Vela, who is the director of the International Observatory Analysis of the Colombian Externado University, said that the ruling of the UN highest court is immediately applicable and the new map of the western Caribbean is the one the international court decided in its ruling. Otherwise, he says, is speculation.

In an interview with the newspaper El Espectador, he said that Colombia ‘has painstakingly built a tradition of respect for the international legal order, which has given recognition and prestige to its foreign policy, and must preserve it.

In his view, refusing the decision could be taken as an attack and, consequently, against the key provision of the San Francisco Charter, constitutive of the United Nations, which expressly prohibits the use of force.

According to Vela, in recent times the Colombian made serious mistakes that could explain the judgment of The Hague. One of them was to ignore the jurisdiction of the Court the day before Nicaragua filed the application.

From his knowledge of the subject, Vela believes the Court’s ruling was Solomonic becuase did not completely receive neither Nicaragua’s nor Colombia’s claims.