Abstract

Territorial disputes are pandemics in Africa; the Bakassi dispute was one of such. It was submitted by Cameroon to the International Court of Justice at The Hague for its determination.  This work seeks to examine the role played by the International Court of Justice in the Conflict Resolution of the Bakassi Conflict and its implications for Nigeria.

The discovery of oil reserves in the waters surrounding Bakassi Peninsula subjected it to claims and counter-claims for sovereignty, military occupation and recourse to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

On October 10, 2002, the International Court of Justice ruled that the Peninsula and the territory in the Lake Chad region should be under the sovereignty of Cameroon. This judgment elicited sensitive scholarly issues of citizenship and self-determination as fundamental human rights. We employed the Liberal Peace by Immanuel Kant in 1795, and the Conflict theory by Karl Marx theory in 1848 as our analytical framework to provide a conceptual foundation for the study.

Our method of data collection and analysis are quantitative and qualitative descriptive methods design respectively, questionnaire was used to collect data from 100 respondents.  Findings indicate the role of the ICJ was a success as it ordered Nigerian’s Army out of the Territory and transit to Cameroon control. Also, findings indicated that this role has a great impact to the Nigerian as they ceased to have control over the rich oil Peninsula.

This work, therefore, is a product of the study of the role of ICJ in the Nigeria-Cameroon boundary dispute. To this effect, we ascertained the ICJ adjudication on the Bakassi Peninsula and its Implications for Nigeria. The interests of external powers affected the adjudication and implementation of the ICJ ruling.

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