The Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the International Court of Justice (ICJ) jurisdiction on Friday ahead of next week’s ruling on Kenya’s longstanding maritime boundary dispute with Somalia.
Kenya said it will not recognise next week’s expected ruling by the International Court of Justice on the maritime border dispute with Somalia.
In a hard-hitting statement, Kenya’s foreign affairs ministry said the judgement “will be the culmination of a flawed judicial process” that was biased.
Kenya walked out of the hearing earlier this year, questioning the fairness of the process. The hearing concerns an area of 62,000 square miles (160,000 square kilometres) in the Indian Ocean.
The area is thought to be rich in oil and gas. The dispute is at the heart of a diplomatic row between neighbours.
“The filing of a case against Kenya at the court, and the court’s assumption of jurisdiction where it had none, are demonstrative of new tactics of using pseudo-judicial processes to undermine territorial integrity,” Kenya’s foreign ministry said.
“In addition to withdrawing its participation from the current case, Kenya… also joined many other members of the United Nations in withdrawing its recognition of the court’s compulsory jurisdiction,” the foreign ministry said.
In 2014, Somalia brought the case, arguing that the maritime frontier should follow the same route as the land border, while Kenya argues that it has always been taken in a horizontal line from the point where the two countries meet at the coast.
The ICJ will deliver its judgement on 12 October.
