038- Sovereignty over Certain Frontier Land (Belgium vs Netherlands)
On November 27th, 1957, Belgium and the Netherlands jointly submitted to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) a compromise requesting it to grant sovereignty over certain border plots of land to one or the other of the country. Each party presented the title and documents on which it based its arguments:
- The Netherlands produced a municipal report redacted between 1838 and 1841 attributing the sovereignty of the disputed parcels to the Dutch Municipality of Baarle-Nassau;
- Belgium, for its part, based its arguments on a descriptive report and a map annexed to an 1843 delimitation agreement attributing Baerle-Duc to it.
After examining the evidence produced, the Court concluded, in a judgment delivered on June 20th, 1959, that sovereignty over the two plots of land belonged to Belgium.
This summary is provided for informational purposes only, does not involve the responsibility of Dome and should in no way be used as a substitute for a careful reading of the judgment and order of the case.
