Colombia’s intention of hiring the firm Volterra Fietta to lodge an appeal to review the sentence decided by the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) on November 19 was questioned today in Nicaragua. To International Law expert Mauricio Herdocia, the Statute of that court established that there is no right to appeal against the verdict, which is compulsory. Thus, any action in that respect will not change the decision established as “res judicata.”
“Colombia is trying to break the res judicata by means of politics. It is an artificial strategy to try to denature the central content of the International Court of Justice’s decision, which is according to International Law and change it,” he told the Nuevo Diario newspaper.
Nicaragua has facilitated fishing for the population of the island of San Andres, but always exercising its sovereign rights, he said in reference to statements by Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin.
When announcing possible hiring of the services of that British company, the Colombian minister expressed the supposed need to review the sentence by the ICJ to guarantee the rights of the fishermen that live in the island, granted to Colombia by that authority.
According to the statutes of the ICJ, Volterra Fietta can only request clarification from the Court and it would be in charge of doing it. Thus, it would not say something different from what it already decided, said Herdocia.
For that entity to accept an appeal for a review, there would have to be a new fact unknown by the Court and the side requesting the review, and as we can recall, the decision was based on the delimitation methodology that is defined, he said.
The ICJ considered all the aspects related to the current and general situation of the areas assigned to Nicaragua and Colombia. The ICJ decided that delimitation in definitive and total terms, he remarked. Herdocia highlighted the fact that Colombia ignored its advisors to this court and turned to a foreign company that perhaps never participated in a trial related to Nicaragua.
