Kenya’s push to have case withdrawn fails

Somalia sidestepped Kenya’s latest push to have the maritime boundary case withdrawn or deferred to allow an African Union-led mechanism for an alternative solution. The details emerged even as controversial Ugandan lawyer David Matsanga wrote to the International Court of Justice with stinging allegations about the conduct of the court’s president Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf. It all played out in the final week of August after Kenyan diplomats wrote to the AU, seeking the hand of the Peace and Security Council to convince Somalia. But Somalia’s Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation minister Ahmed Isse Awad rejected the request and declined Somalia’s attendance of a meeting initially scheduled for August 22. “Somalia pledged to comply with the court’s judgement, whatever the outcome,” Mr Awad wrote to AU Commission chairman Moussa Faki on August 21, in a Note Verbale (diplomatic letter) seen by the Nation. He was referring to a case in which Mogadishu sued Nairobi at the ICJ seeking to change the course of the maritime boundary in the Indian Ocean. “Therefore, the government of Somalia regrets to inform the Commission that it would not be appropriate for it to accept the Commission’s invitation to attend the Peace and Security Council meeting to be held on August 22, 2019 to brief the PSC on the maritime dispute … as the matter is currently pending before the ICJ.” The content of Kenya’s bid at the PSC, AU’s principal decision-making organ on conflict resolution, had always been avoided by Nairobi, with diplomats at the Foreign ministry refusing to confirm the submission made on August 19.