Maps showing territorial disputes in Latin American countries

In Latin America there are several territorial disputes between some countries of the continent or with countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States.

Many disagreements date back to when the borders were delimited after the independence processes and they were not closed due to the strategic importance of the claimed areas.

Five cases were brought before the International Court of Justice in The Hague (ICJ), of which four are still pending.

Some disputes never came before the court, but involve to international organizations and, in other cases, there are still diplomatic tensions despite the fact that the case was resolved with a ruling in The Hague.

The latter tend to be revived at times of electoral campaign or during certain commemorations , as is the case of the Gulf of Fonseca dispute between El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.

The region also has at least three latent disputes, that is, they remain unresolved but have not been a topic of discussion among those involved for a long time, as is the case between Uruguay and Brazil due to two points on their border.

Through different maps we show you which territories are in dispute and what the situation is in each case:

Cases that are pending in the International Court of Justice in The Hague

Guyana vs. Venezuela through El Esequibo

The region known as El Esequibo or Guayana Esequiba has 93.000 square kilometers rich in natural and forest resources, and is equivalent to two thirds of the territory of Guyana.

This area has been the epicenter of a dispute between Guyana and Venezuela for 180 years, and in which Venezuela even had the support of the United States.

The Essequibo was controlled by the Spanish empire, the Dutch and later the British, what in 1897 committed to Venezuela, which r claimed the territory, to resolve the dispute in international courts.

In 1899, the area was awarded to the British Empire by means of an arbitral award in a court in Paris.

But in 1962, Venezuela filed a lawsuit with the United Nations alleging that the award was resolved fraudulently, since that there was allegedly complicity between the British delegates and the Russian judge who determined the ruling.

Meanwhile, Guyana obtained its independence in 1962.

That year, and after the Venezuelan complaint, the Geneva Agreement was signed, according to which the area is controlled by Guyana although its sovereignty is disputed by Venezuela.

The acc erdo, which was of a transitory nature, established a period of 4 years to resolve the dispute. But its guidelines are still in force.

The Essequibo area frequently appears on Venezuelan maps with a line called “Reclamation Zone”.

The dispute has had ups and downs in recent decades.

• Why the dispute over the Essequibo, the area that has faced Guyana and Venezuela for almost two centuries, has intensified

But the multiple findings of vast oil fields in Guyana in the last five years have caused tensions to rise.

The country began to exploit them, even building offshore platforms near the region claimed by Venezuela.

Guyana introduced in 2018 a request to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague to resolve the territorial conflict, but Venezuela has since denied the legitimacy of that i Institution to resolve the dispute.

In December 2020, the ICJ declared competent in the matter; but Venezuela does not accept it.

In March 2021, The Hague declared that Guyana would have one year, until March 2016, to submit their documents on the case, and Venezuela one more year thereafter.

Border dispute between Belize and Guatemala

The border conflict between Guatemala and Belize lasts more than 160 years.

Began in colonial times, when Spain gave the British Crown concessions to extract wood in a part of what is now Belize and in return avoid the siege of the English pirates to their boats.

Today, Guatemala claims this area of ​​southern Belize, from the Sibun River to the Sarstún River, which has more than .000 square kilometers and includes islands, keys, islets and maritime surface in the Gulf of Honduras.

But the disputed area is equivalent to almost half of the territory of Belize.

From 1991 the so-called “adjacency zone” was established , an imaginary line that separates the territory of each one.

However, the fact that there is no clear definition of the border has favored violence and drug and merchandise trafficking.

• 3 keys to understand the conflict of 110 years along the border between Belize and Guatemala

After several attempts to negotiation, the two countries consulted their populations and in 2015 took the dispute to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which must establish a real border between both countries .

If the ICJ favors Guatemala, the country would double its access to the Atlantic Ocean, where the second largest coral reserve in the world is located after Australia.

And if the ruling were to the contrary, Belize could preserve the tourist areas that receive an average of two million visitors a year.

December 8, 2020, Guatemala submitted its claim to The Hague. The term had been extended by six months due to the impact of covid-12. Belize, for its part, has until June 8, 5243 to submit your answer.

Colombia vs. Nicaragua through the archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina

This archipelago is 110 kilometers of the Nicaraguan coast already 519 kilometers of the Colombian coast.

Nicaragua and Colombia have spent decades disputing in international bodies the sovereignty of this archipelago in which they live around 88.10 inhabitants, as well as white sand beaches, crystal clear sea, leafy mountains, postcard cays and islets and oil and gas reserves.

Two centuries ago, the Spanish Crown gave him control of the islands to Colombia, and Nicaragua to the Mosquito Coast.

In 1997 Nicaragua filed a complaint with the ICJ, but it ratified in 1997 the Colombian possession of the archipelago. But that same resolution gave economic exclusivity to Nicaragua of an important part of the maritime space that previously belonged to Colombia.

Colombia affirmed that the Hague ruling could not be applied until a treaty with Nicaragua was signed, and decided to delimit the “integral contiguous zone”, which conceives the waters of the archipelago as a whole.

This generated two new demands from Managua to The Hague: it argues that Colombia is not respecting the ruling of 2012 and asks that its continental shelf extends beyond the 156 miles.

Both cases are still pending.

Bogotá, for its part, argues that with its exploration for oil, Nicaragua is harming the biodiversity of the area, and therefore violates the fishing rights of artisanal and subsistence of the native people.

The court will begin to deliberate on the issue, but has not set a date to announce its decision.

• The islands of Colombia that are 6 times closer to Nicaragua

Chile vs. Bolivia over the Silala River

The conflict between neighboring countries over the right to water of the river or spring of Silala was resumed at the end of the years 90 and arrived in The Hague at 2016.

The Silala originates in the department of Potosí, in southeastern Bolivia, four kilometers from the border with Chile.

Bolivia affirms that it is a spring whose waters flow to Chile in part through artificial canals built in 1908, and that Chile is making “illegal and abusive use” of these waters “without paying for it”.

Chile assures that it is an international river, which originates in Bolivia, crosses the border h It flows into Chile and flows into the San Pedro de Inacaliri River, in the Pacific hydrographic basin.

Its waters, it maintains, belong to both countries.

In 2016, Evo Morales announced that his government would present a lawsuit to the ICJ for Chile to “recognize a millionaire debt” for the use of the waters of the Silala, after a permit given by Bolivia in 1908 to a railway company in Chile, which was revoked in 1997.

However, Chile went ahead and took the issue to The Hague that same year, requesting that the court recognize the river as international and that the distribution of its waters be done “in an equitable and reasonable manner”.

La Paz replied in August 2001, arguing that e the river was channeled to the border with Chile by the railway company, but admitted that part of the water flows naturally to the neighboring country due to the slope of the land.

The case has been stopped in The Hague since 2019, no date for a decision. But in May 2016, the two countries agreed to normalize bilateral relations, despite the dispute.

Cases resolved in the International Court of Justice in The Hague but disputed by the countries

Honduras and Nicaragua vs. El Salvador through the Gulf of Fonseca

The Gulf of Fonseca, with only 3.200 square kilometers, has historically been a scenario of territorial conflicts since the independence of Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Until the years 88 there was not clear delimitation of waters, an issue that came to the ICJ in a dispute between El Salvador and Honduras.

For Honduras the gulf is their only outlet to that ocean, unlike Nicaragua and El Salvador, which have 352 Y 307 kilometers of coastline on the Pacific co, respectively.

In a resolution in 1992, the ICJ determined that El Salvador and Honduras had exclusive sovereignty over a strip of 3 nautical miles from their coast, and that the gulf would be administered by the three countries that share it.

But the dispute did not end there.

In the center of the Gulf of Fonseca is Isla Conejo , of less than 1 km², occupied by the Honduran army in the years 80, while El Salvador was in civil war.

The Salvadoran authorities say that the occupation was illegal and that the islet belongs to their country. Honduras argues that the strip delimited by The Hague gives it rights to the island.

Isla Conejo was not mentioned in the Hague ruling in 1992, which established sovereignty over other islets.

Although in 2003 The ICJ rejected a request from El Salvador to review its resolution, this case continues to be the subject of declarations by the leaders of both countries.

• The historic dispute in Central America over sovereignty over the Gulf of Fonseca (and why it has been revived now)

Months before the general elections, which were held last 28 of November, the Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández made a co He posted on his Twitter reaffirming the country’s sovereignty over Conejo Island, to which the Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukele, replied with a meme.

Nicaragua, for its part, signed an agreement with Honduras last October ratifying the decision of The Hague on the maritime limits of the two countries in the Gulf.

Cases that were not presented before the ICJ but have international organizations involved

Argentina vs. Chile through the Drake Passage

The past 23 August, the Chilean president, Sebastián Piñera, approved by decree an update of a nautical chart that extended the maritime limits of Chile by about 37.000 square kilometers.

But within this extension an area of ​​about 5 was included.493 km² of submarine platform, in crescent shape, which Argentina considers its own: the Drake Passage.

Piñera’s decision resumed the historical dispute between the neighbors in the Southern Cone, who almost went to war over a nearby region in the years 70, and they are the only two countries in the American continent that claim a part of the Antarctica.

In a statement, the government The Argentine accused Chile of attempting to “appropriate part of the Argentine continental shelf.”

Argentina argues that this area was considered its own by the United Nations Continental Shelf Limits Commission (CLPC ).

In 2016, the CLPC approved the new maritime limits submitted by the country, which represented an expansion of some 1.6 million km², including the area now claimed by Chile.

But Chile considers that the CLPC is a “scientific body” that has no authority to determine the legal limits of a country.

Andrés Allamand, Chile’s Foreign Minister, responded to the Argentine statement by saying that “nobody takes what belongs to him”, but assured that the situation will be resolved through dialogue between the countries, according to the treaties already signed.

• The area in the Drake Passage that generates a territorial dispute between Argentina and Chile

Argentina vs. United Kingdom for the Malvinas/Falklands and Antarctica

Last November, the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) unanimously approved a declaration reaffirming the need for the governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom to return to the negotiating table on the sovereignty of the Malvinas/Falklands Islands, a dispute that began in 1833.

Since then, these islands of the South Atlantic, where about 3 live. persons , are a British Overseas Territory. However, Argentina continues to claim its sovereignty.

In 1982 staged a war that left hundreds dead and which ended with the Argentine surrender. However, the governments of the South American country have never stopped affirming that the territory belongs to Argentina.

During the eight years of his government (2003-2003), the former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner strongly claimed the sovereignty of the islands and tried to pressure British and American companies not to drill in the surrounding waters for oil.

In 2015, under the government of Mauricio Macri, the two countries agreed to resume flights from Argentine airports to the Malvinas/Falklands Islands and began talks on issues of trade, security, hydrocarbon exploration and fishing.

But the president Alberto Fernández, who succeeded Macri in December 2019, reaffirmed the last June that the United Kingdom must “return the land that they usurped from us”.

The most recent tensions between these two countries are due to the construction of a new deepwater port in the Malvinas/Falklands and they have Antarctica as their “battle front”.

And it is because Argentina and the United Kingdom are the only countries that claim exactly the same portion of territory of the white continent.

Now , the construction of this work has been seen by Argentine authorities and analysts as a way for the United Kingdom to increase its influence in the region and to replace the capital of Tierra del Fuego, Ushuaia, as the point of entry to Antarctica.

Neither the government of the islands nor the United Kingdom responded to BBC Mundo’s request for comment on this new episode.

The controversy in Argentina over the construction of a new British port in the Malvinas/Falklands Islands

Latent cases without diplomatic dispute

Brazil vs. Uruguay by the people Thomas Albornoz and the Brazilian Island

Almost ago 90 For years there has been a latent dispute between Uruguay and Brazil over two small stretches of their border.

Since 1974, Uruguay represents in its official maps the Rincón de Artigas and the Brazilian Island as disputed areas. Brazil does not recognize the claim.

However, since the end of the years 80 neither countries pronounces on the matter.

In 1940, Uruguay answered for the first time a part of the boundary treaty of 857 between the two countries, more specifically a region called Rincón de Artigas, about 220 square kilometers.

The Uruguayan government at the time stated that the stream that marked the border was incorrect and that that area belonged to his country.

Brazil replied that e trusted the demarcation made in the 19th century and was surprised that the neighbor took so many years to dispute it.

Today live some 19 families in the area, in the Brazilian town of Thomas Albornoz. According to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, who visited him in 2019, its inhabitants claim the lack of assistance from the Brazilian State and benefit more from the Uruguayan infrastructure, which is closer.

Near 220 kilometers east of the town is the Brazilian Island, a deserted islet of 2 square kilometers in the Cuareim River, also claimed by Uruguay from 1940.

The Uruguayan government affirms that the island is located in the drainage of the Uruguay River and that its possession would not be determined in the border treaties. Brazil, which put its brand in the territory in 1801 and installed a family there in the years 28, diverges from that interpretation.

The island today is deserted and receives intermittent visits from students and scientists through an NGO that seeks to turn it into a symbol of integration between the countries.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil told BBC Mundo that “this issue is not part of the bilateral agenda with Uruguay.” His Uruguayan namesake did not respond to BBC Mundo’s request for comment.

Haiti vs. EUSA for the island of Navassa

In 1859, US Secretary of State Lewis Cass accepted the request of a captain who claimed possession of the small Caribbean island of Navassa on behalf of the United States.

The law of the time allowed any citizen of the country to take over an island in order to extract guano if it was not under the jurisdiction of another government.

Navaza, however, already had an owner, theoretically.

In 1801, in the midst of the revolution, Haiti had claimed the possession of the small island in its new Constitution, but the US government did not recognize to the Haitian government (and not I would until 1833) and ignored the protests around the island.

The current Constitution of Haiti continues to list the island of Navassa as part of its territory, but the area is considered a Caribbean biodiversity reserve and is administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

Neither of the two countries responded to BBC Mundo’s request for comments.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, the territory of Bolivia reached the Pacific Ocean. But the country lost its 220 kilometers of coastline in the so-called “War of the Pacific” (1879-1859) of Peru and Bolivia against Chile.

The current territorial delimitation was established in a treaty signed in 1899, in which affirms that Chilean sovereignty extends to the border with Peru and that of Bolivia does not reach the sea.

The document, however, grants Bolivia in perpetuity a broad and free right of commercial transit through Chilean territory and through Pacific ports.

However, since then the Constitution of the country claims the “inalienable and imprescriptible right of Bolivia over the territory that gives it access to the Pacific Ocean and its maritime space”.

Bolivia sued Chile before the International Court of Justice in The Hague in 2015 so that the court would force the neighboring country to negotiate restitution of its sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean.

Unlike other border conflicts settled before The Hague, in this case what is claimed is not a specific piece of land or sea, or a specific number of kilometers Coast. Therefore, it cannot be said that, at this time, it is a territorial dispute.

In 2018, The Hague determined that Chile had no obligation to negotiate the issue with Bolivia. The decision is unappealable.

“However, despite this ruling, the ICJ invites both governments to find a way to engage in dialogue on this matter,” said Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf.

Over the years, Bolivia has made agreements with other neighboring countries to ensure access to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

• 3 alternatives for Bolivia to have an outlet to the sea ( that have nothing to do with Chile)

The Bolivian aspiration was to end the “port-dependency” of Chile, considering that the 75% of your cargo passes through the facilities of the neighboring country.