Court Watch
asked by Cambodia to make a judgment officially settling a dispute over the ownership of the Tem- ple. The judgment officially granted the Temple to the Cambodian city of Phnom Penh; however, this did not prevent tension surrounding the dispute – tension which provoked violent confrontations that have left 28 dead. In 2013, the ICJ was yet again asked to resolve the decades-old dispute with an official interpretation of its 1962 judgment.
On February 13, 1904, France (which controlled Cambodia at the time) and the former state of Siam (present day Thailand) created a treaty that specified a boundary between the two nations, along the Dangrek Mountains. At this time, the two governments commissioned several maps which placed the boundary to the north of the Temple, putting the Temple well within Cambodian territory; however, the treaty also specified that the boundary was to follow the watershed line be- tween the Nam Sen and the Mekong basins. This specification would later give a basis to Thailand’s claims of ownership.
French Cambodia maintained possession of the Temple until 1954, when Thailand gained occu- pancy of the Temple shortly after Cambodia’s in- dependence. Four years later, in 1959, the Temple was again seized by Cambodia. After this point, Cambodian control over the Temple remained rela- tively established; however, areas surrounding the Temple remained in dispute. By 1962, the ICJ had conducted an in-depth investigatory hearing sur- rounding the border dispute. After analyzing the language of the 1904 treaty and several maps, the ICJ ultimately held that Cambodia had official con- trol of the Temple and the lands around it.
In 2008, armed clashes began to arise around the Temple between Cambodian and Thai military forces stationed near the site. . While there was no dispute that the Temple was under the control of the Cambodian government, the ICJ’s original rul- ing provided little specifications concerning the 4.6 square miles surrounding the Temple. The conflict
ILSA Quarterly » volume 22 » issue 3 » February 2014
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