Preliminary Objections (Nigeria v. Cameroon), Judgment of 1995

On 29 March 1994, Cameroon filed an application instituting proceedings against Nigeria in a dispute concerning the question of sovereignty over the Bakassi Peninsula, which it claimed was in part under military occupation by Nigeria, and requested the Court to determine the course of the maritime frontier between the two States in so far as that frontier had not already been established by the Maroua Declaration signed by the Cameroonian and Nigerian Heads of State in 1975.
As a basis for the jurisdiction of the Court, Cameroon referred to the declarations made by both States whereby they accept that jurisdiction as compulsory (Article 36, paragraph 2, of the Statute of the Court). In an additional application filed on 6 June 1994, Cameroon extended the case to a further dispute with Nigeria over "a part of the territory of Cameroon in the area of Lake Chad", which it claimed was also occupied by Nigeria. Cameroon asked the Court to specify definitively the frontier between itself and Nigeria from Lake Chad to the sea, to order the withdrawal of Nigerian troops from Cameroonian territory and to determine reparation for the material and non-material damage inflicted.

The Court was  asked to adjudge and declare not only "sovereignty over the disputed parcel in the area of Lake Chad" but also to "specify definitively the frontier between Cameroon and the Federal Republic of Nigeria from Lake Chad to the sea" (a distance of approximately 1,680 kilometres).

Nigeria submits:
(1) that Cameroon, by lodging the Application on 29 March 1994, violated its obligations to act in good faith, acted in abuse of the system established by Article 36.2 of the Statute, and disregarded the requirement of reciprocity established by Article 36.2 of the Statute and the terms of Nigeria's Declaration of 3 September 1965;
(2) that consequently the conditions necessary to entitle Cameroon to invoke its Declaration under Article 36.2 as a basis for the Court's jurisdiction did not exist when the Application was lodged; and
(3) that accordingly, the Court is without jurisdiction to entertain the Application.
 

In a Judgment rendered on 11 June 1998, the Court rejected seven of the preliminary objections raised by Nigeria and declared that an eighth one would have to be dealt with during the proceedings on the merits. It further declared that it had jurisdiction in the case and found Cameroon's claims admissible.