The ICJ- Kenya – Somalia ruling an effect of colonialism

In 1884, fourteen European Nations including America met in Berlin, Germany and divided amongst themselves the countries of Africa, but they didn’t have a single representative from Africa. The outcome of such meeting was the drawing of the African political map that has since existed with slight modifications. It can thus be said that these boundaries are man-made and hence separation lines done according to the tastes and dictates of the powerful nations that drew them. The conflicts and origins of international boundaries are dealt at through the study of Political Geography which I covered extensively in my bachelor’s degree. It has been studied and concluded that in many cases where judgements are made on such boundary disputes as has been the case with Kenya and Somalia, such judgements are more subjective than objective and it has been established that maintaining objectivity in such cases is highly impossible. Boundaries are therefore to an extent a manifestation of some compromise between various competing factors like economic, strategic importance, ethnic and also other issues that states might hold onto as they lay claim to territories like the past patterns of administration or presence in such areas.

At independence, opinion was divided as to whether states should revise their boundaries in order to respect their ethnicities and other factors or to maintain a status quo of the boundaries as had been drawn by the colonialists. Those who were for revision of the boundaries formed the revisionist group and those against were the anti-revisionist group, which included the Organization of the African Unity (OAU) and later the African Union (AU), which took such a step to avoid lots of disputes, conflicts and wars on boundaries. The issue of boundaries on the African continent has been a vexatious one. The question for states is to see the need to forego such conflicts and move ahead with what was allocated albeit without our participation and to leverage on what we have to develop our continent. Opening boundary issues at this time can lead to serious conflicts and wars which are not necessary. Opening the boundaries would be to open a Pandora’s box which would have a spiral effect since every country in Africa has a claim to this or that territory.