Fuentes del derecho internacional público y su incidencia en la delimitación de fronteras marítimas

Abstract

The International Court of Justice has established itself as the main international body before which most international disputes arise, this is against the delimitation of borders between States (land or sea). For this reason, the litigations that have been presented on these topics have been characterized by a direct application of Custom as the main source of public international law, since it is worth remembering that in matters of maritime law, most of its postulates are based on international customs; however, it is not an easy task for the ICJ (International Court of Justice) to carry out the delimitation of these borders in each case, since alluding to the postulate that in law everything "Depends" on international law is applied the same postulate in which you must rule “Case by Case”; however, although there are no similar cases in their entirety, there are factual patterns that are used to determine a common postulate; In the case of the International Court of Justice against these maritime delimitations, two main postulates have been taken, on the one hand, the C.I.J. in its first rulings (1985-1995), it opted for establishing that the internal coasts of the States should not be taken to proceed with the delimitation, however, in the most recent rulings of this Corporation a position has been evidenced tending to take into account the State internal coasts to carry out the Base Lines that will later serve to make the delimitation; however, these phenomena obey, a priori, the application of international customs, since they are postulated as the principle of "Uti Possideti Iuris" (Possess and use the good / right) and likewise the principle of "Effectivities" (Use , Enjoyment and Disposition), are applied directly in the realization of said rulings, since it is not possible to ignore acquired rights that the States gain over the years exercising possession over a certain territory. From the aforementioned, the two positions that have been taken by the ICJ are evident, on the one hand, that of taking the internal coasts for the delimitation of maritime borders and on the other extreme, that of not taking the coasts for the subsequent drawing the baseline that will serve to set the border line between the states involved in the dispute. On the other hand, by studying each of the sources, it is possible to make a holistic view of public international law and its direct application with the delimitation of international maritime borders, since when analyzing the different sources stipulated by the Statute of the International Court of Justice (art. 38) With the development of this work, the aim is to establish the way in which the international court of justice applies principles of public international law when establishing maritime boundaries between states and how jurisprudence affects the development of this process.