Constitutions Challenging the International Court of Justice’s Jurisdiction to Adjudicate Territorial Disputes in Latin America

Latin America has shown an increment in litigation before the international Court of Justice (ICJ) in cases related to territorial and maritime delimitation disputes. The ICJ has been their ‘natural’ jurisdiction thanks to broad competence clauses included in regional dispute settlement treaties such as the Pact of Bogotá. As a consequence of this increased litigation and the variety of results attained in judgements by the ICJ defining boundaries and sovereign rights around Latin America, a strange behaviour has become common place between the litigating States when they are not pleased with the result. Several Latin American States have opposed their constitutions to the ICJ judgements, invoking a particular constitutional clause, common in the regional historic embrace of the uti possidetis iuris principle, known as the ‘constitutional territory clause’.