copenlu/druid huggingface dataset:
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2018-05-13): On 10 October 2002, the International Court of Justice at The Hague delivered judgement in the contentious case between Cameroon and Nigeria (Equatorial Guinea intervening) to the effect, inter alia, that ‘sovereignty over the Bakassi Peninsula lies with the Republic of Cameroon’. The Court further decided that ‘the Federal Republic of Nigeria is under an obligation expeditiously and without condition to withdraw its administration and its military and police forces from the territories which fall within the sovereignty of the Republic of Cameroon’. On the face of it, this was simply an interstate territorial dispute involving two African States. This article argues, however, that in the circumstances of the case, colonialism was on trial. Properly analysed, and within the broad framework of colonial responsibility, at the heart of the case is British responsibility to the people of Bakassi and, by extension, Nigeria. Regrettably, the majority of the Court evaded this central issue and chose, instead, to engage in a spurious analysis whose end result was the transformation of a regime engendered by a treaty that, by its very provisions, established a protectorate into a colony or a so-called colonial protectorate! In the circumstances, the article underscores the imperative of critical legal scholarship that interrogates the colonial enterprise, with a view to purging international law of its colonial vestiges. [...] Dakas, D.C.J. (2018). Interrogating Colonialism: Bakassi, the Colonial Question and the Imperative of Exorcising the Ghost of Eurocentric International Law.
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2018-07-06): The population of Bakassi is in the middle of a historic resettlement. Following a protracted border conflict dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria, both governments began a handing-over of the peninsula to Cameroon in 2006. [...] Located in the South Western region, the Bakassi Peninsula is mostly inhabitated by Nigerians. However, the government of Cameroon initiated there a programme to establish palm oil farms owned by State-run agro-industrial firm, Pamol Plantations Plc. [...] Bakassi returned to full Ambazonia control on 14 August 2013. It is located in Ambazonia’s Equatorial State.
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-10-09): Obasanjo was also faced with resolving an ongoing border dispute with neighbouring Cameroon that included the question of which country had rights to the Bakassi Peninsula, an oil-rich area to which both countries had strong cultural ties. Under the terms of a 2002 International Court of Justice ruling, the region was awarded to Cameroon, and Obasanjo was criticized by the international community when Nigeria did not immediately comply by withdrawing its troops from the area in the subsequent years. He also received much domestic criticism for contemplating withdrawal from the peninsula by those who questioned the fate of the large number of Nigerians living in the region and cited the long-standing cultural ties between the Bakassi Peninsula and Nigeria. Nevertheless, Obasanjo eventually honoured the terms of the ruling in 2006 when Nigeria relinquished its claim to the peninsula and withdrew its forces. The process of transferring the peninsula to Cameroon was not without its problems, including the ongoing issue of resettling Nigerians displaced by the transfer and the dissatisfaction of those who remained but were now under Cameroonian rule. In November 2007 Nigeria’s Senate voted to void the agreement that had ceded the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon. However, this action did not affect the actual status of the peninsula, and a ceremony held on August 14, 2008, marked the completion of the peninsula’s transfer from Nigeria to Cameroon.
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-09-02): The Bakassi conflict is an ongoing armed dispute over the Bakassi Peninsula of Cameroon. Originally subject to a border conflict between Cameroon and Nigeria, Bakassi later became affected by insurgencies waged by local separatists against Cameroonian government forces. [...] [edit]By 2018, a major rebellion had broken out in the Cameroon's Anglophone territories which included Bakassi.[54] Some former Bakassi separatists voiced support for this uprising; BFF commanmder "Ebi Dari" later stated that he had made contact with Ambazonian rebels in hopes of securing Bakassi's "freedom" within an independent Ambazonia.[24] [...] - ^ a b "Nigeria cedes Bakassi to Cameroon". BBC News. 14 August 2008. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2014-08-29): Cameroon, Nigeria and the Bakassi conflict: building blocks for a Non-Democratic Peace Theory [...] The Democratic Peace Theory, which argues in part that democracies hardly go to war against each other, has made a lasting impression in the field of war and peace studies. While the theory has been mostly applied to the ‘peace zones’ of the Global North (made up of stable democracies and where war is ‘unthinkable’), the ‘conflict zones’ of the Global South (a significant part of which Africa is made of) has been left in relative theoretical neglect, as it relates to peaceful interstate relations. The Nigeria–Cameroon crisis over the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula provides a sensitive case study in the Global South for laying a foundation for a Non-Democratic Peace Theory (NDPT). Why did the Nigeria–Cameroon conflict over the strategic oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula not degenerate into a sustained full-scale war given the non-democratic foundations of the participant countries? This paper makes an attempt at laying the building blocks for an NDPT for Africa. Although Cameroon and Nigeria could not at the latent point of the conflict be considered democracies, they acted in a manner that reflected the character of global democracies. [...] Sama, Molem Christopher and Debora Johnson-Ross (2006) ‘Reclaiming the Bakassi Kingdom: The Anglophone Cameroon–Nigeria Border’, Afrika Zamani 13&14 (1): 103–22.
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2017-09-15): Following a lengthy period of intense disagreement and occasional clashes over ownership of Bakassi, a peninsula on the Gulf of Guinea lying between the Cross River estuary in the west, and the Rio del Ray estuary on the east, in 2002, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in Cameroon’s favour over the disputed territory. [...] However, despite the formal handover of Bakassi to Cameroon in 2006, the territory of Bakassi is still reflected as part of the 774 local governments in Nigeria as contained in the First Schedule, Part I of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. [...] On June 18, 2008, few weeks to the August deadline for the handing over of the remaining areas of Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon by Nigeria, the Bakassi Resettlement Committee established during the Imoke-led administration made its findings, and rejected the resettlement of the people in Ikang.
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (1995-03-16): On 29 March 1994, Cameroon filed in the Registry of the Court an Application instituting proceedings against Nigeria with respect to the question of sovereignty over the Bakassi Peninsula, and requesting the Court to determine the course of the maritime frontier between the two States in so far as that frontier had not been established in 1975. As a basis for the jurisdiction of the Court, Cameroon referred to the declarations made by the two States under Article 36, paragraph 2, of the Statute of the Court, by which they accepted that jurisdiction as compulsory. In its Application, Cameroon referred to "an aggression by the Federal Republic of Nigeria, whose troops are occupying several Cameroonian localities on the Bakassi Peninsula", and asked the Court, inter alia, to adjudge and declare that sovereignty over the Peninsula of Bakassi was Cameroonian, by virtue of international law, and that Nigeria had violated and was violating the fundamental principle of respect for frontiers inherited from colonization (uti possidetis juris), as well as other rules of conventional and customary international law, and that Nigeria’s international responsibility was involved. [...] - In Bakassi, the Court decided that the boundary was delimited by the Anglo-German Agreement of 11 March 1913 (Arts. XVIII-XX) and that sovereignty over the Bakassi Peninsula lay with Cameroon. It decided that in that area the boundary followed the thalweg of the River Akpakorum (Akwayafe), dividing the Mangrove Islands near Ikang in the way shown on map TSGS 2240, as far as a straight line joining Bakassi Point and King Point.
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2013-08-15): Security Council praises Cameroon, Nigeria for Bakassi Peninsula transition [...] In June 2006, the two countries signed the UN-backed Greentree Agreement setting the terms and timeframe for the implementation of the 2002 ruling of the ICJ, which transferred the Bakassi Peninsula from Nigeria to Cameroon. Nigeria formally ceded the territory in 2008, and since then a transitional phase has been in place to give full sovereignty of the territory to Cameroon.
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2008-08-14): "We are saddled with the painful, but important task of completing the implementation of the International Court of Justice’s judgment by handing the Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon," Aondoakaa said at the ceremony. [...] Cameroon first took its case for sovereignty over the Bakassi peninsula to the ICJ in The Hague in 1994. [...] Cameroon and Nigeria then signed an accord, known as the Green Tree agreement, in New York in 2006 during US-facilitated mediation talks, paving the way for Nigeria’s withdrawal from Bakassi.
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2017-07-14): Nigeria's parliament is investigating reports that 97 fishermen have been killed in the Bakassi peninsula, which the country ceded to Cameroon. [...] Cameroon took control of oil-rich Bakassi in 2008 after an International Court of Justice ruling, ending years of border skirmishes. [...] • Cameroon based its claim of sovereignty on maps dating back to the colonial era • It was administered by Nigeria from independence in 1960 until 2008 • Nigeria and Cameroon nearly went to war over Bakassi in 1981 and bloody clashes claimed 34 lives in 1994 • In 2002, the International Court of Justice ruled in Cameroon's favour • 14 August 2006: Nigerian troops withdrew but the area remained under Nigerian administration • 14 August 2008: Nigeria fully ceded the territory to Cameroon • 15 August 2013: Cameroon took over full sovereignty and a tax-free exemption for residents came to an end
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2019-05-16): As flags exchanged hands between Nigerian and Cameroonian authorities, so did the fortunes of the population in Bakassi, where many of the people are from the Efik ethnic group, which doubles as a lingua franca across Cross River. It was at this ceremony that Nigeria officially transferred authority over the territory to Cameroon in agreement with a 2002 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which upheld Cameroon’s claims to Bakassi peninsula. [...] Two months later, Nigeria withdrew over 3,000 troops but continued to control some parts of the peninsula until June 2008 in line with the pact. This gave Nigerian nationals the chance to return and resettle in Nigeria, become Cameroonian citizens or continue to stay in Bakassi as resident aliens in Cameroon.
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2014-08-30): For close to fifty years, the territorial dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon continued over the region along their border known as the Bakassi peninsula. The dispute almost led to war in the mid-1990s, was settled by the International Court of Justice in 2002, and resulted in hand-off of the territory by Nigeria to Cameroon in 2008. Content analysis of newspapers from Nigeria and Cameroon for the year 2010 revealed underlying identity-based needs that had been left largely unaddressed. Analysis of Nigerian newspapers showed a prevalent discussion of unfulfilled identity needs and an unresolved identity-conflict potential. Analysis of Cameroonian newspapers revealed the fulfilling of a new identity as the Bakassi region was proactively populated with Cameroonian citizens, culture, and connectivity to the rest of the country. The Bakassi dispute resolution was heralded as a success by state leadership, but it was not perceived in the same way by the general population as evidenced in the content analysis. Public opinions expressed in the media were less reflective of a cooperative result and more reflective of a zero-sum negotiation result with a clear winner and a clear loser. "Interests and Identities in Peace Negotiations: Nigeria, Cameroon, and the Bakassi Peninsula,"
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-06-13): In September 2002, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Government of France sponsored talks in Paris, where both parties formally committed to respecting the judgement of the ICJ.[5] This round of talks also resulted in the UN forming a joint Cameroonian-Nigerian commission, which resolved several disputes (such as that concerning the territory around Lake Chad) but failed to address Bakassi.[6] In its judgement the following month, the ICJ granted sovereignty over the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon and ordered the removal of all Nigerian personnel from the area.[7] Continued Nigerian recalcitrance to withdraw led to another flare up of tensions in June 2005, leading to yet another round of negotiations hosted by the UN.[8] These talks culminated in June 2006 with the Greentree Agreement and the withdrawal of Nigerian troops from the area two months later.[9] Thanks to the efforts of the OAU, UN, and ICJ, an interstate conflict between Cameroon and Nigeria was avoided.
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2006-08-12): Nigeria is to hand over the potentially oil-rich Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon after a bitter dispute lasting 13 years. [...] Nigeria and Cameroon have since disputed ownership of the Bakassi peninsula since 1993. [...] Nigerians living in Bakassi have accused Cameroonian security agents of harassment and extortion and fear attack when Bakassi is handed over.
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-01-29): Along the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean in southwestern Cameroon lies an oil-rich peninsular called Bakassi, a territory full of history. Once controlled by Nigeria for dozens of years, the disputed area is now under the control of the Cameroonian government. Most of its residents still lack legal ID. [...] Cameroon finally regained full sovereignty over Bakassi on August 14, 2008 in a symbolic ceremony which took place in the Nigerian city of Calabar. But 15 years after that full take-over of authority, Bakassi remains mired in a litany of problems. [...] Since Bakassi officially became a Cameroonian territory, all children born there, even of Nigerian parents, are automatically considered Cameroonian since the country recognises the jus soli principle of nationality. However, intentional efforts must be made, observers say, to ensure that these children enjoy their right to legal identity, which is also vital in guaranteeing them access to a wide array of services later on in their lives.
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2008-08-14): Nigeria has handed over the potentially oil-rich Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon, bringing an end to a long-standing dispute over the territory. [...] The transfer of Bakassi had been described by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon as "a model for negotiated settlements of border disputes". [...] The Bakassi peninsula juts out into the Gulf of Guinea close to the Niger Delta.
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2006-06-12): The Presidents of Nigeria and Cameroon today signed an Agreement settling a decades-old, sometimes violent, border dispute over the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula, following intensive mediation over the weekend by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. "The signing ceremony, which has brought us together, crowns a remarkable experiment in conflict prevention by Cameroon and Nigeria," Mr. Annan said of the Agreement, which provides for the withdrawal of Nigerian troops within 60 days, with a possible 30-day extension, from Bakassi, which the International Court of Justice, the top United Nations judicial body, awarded to Cameroon in 2002. [...] The historic Agreement came some 12 years after Cameroon asked the International Court of Justice to rule on a dispute "relat[ing] essentially to the question of sovereignty over the Bakassi Peninsula", which it claimed was in part under military occupation by Nigeria, and to determine the maritime boundary between the countries. Later, in 1994, Cameroon’s Government extended the case to a further dispute, relating to "the question of sovereignty over a part of the territory of Cameroon in the area of Lake Chad", which it claimed was also occupied by Nigeria.
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2007-12-02): According to U.N. envoy Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, who until recently had headed the Mixed Commission as the U.N. Secretary General’s Special Representative at the U.N. Office for West Africa, the issue of the identity of the people living in the region should be separate from the determination of sovereignty over the region. He stated, "[t]he identity of a people is not always the same as the identity of the territory they live on. There are more than three million Nigerians living in various parts of Cameroon. Only a small percentage of them live in Bakassi. Whether they are living in Bakassi or elsewhere in Cameroon that territory is not Nigeria." (Cameroon-Nigeria: Settling Bakassi – Interview with UN Envoy Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, supra.)
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2012-04-02): The peninsula of Bakassi has long been the subject of a territorial dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria. Now it shows what can happen to people when control over the territory where they live shifts from one country to another. Tens of Thousands of people, possibly more, who inhabited (and some of whom still inhabit) the peninsula have lost access to nationality or citizenship rights, and now live in a legal limbo. In October 2002, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague decided that Bakassi was part of Cameroon, not Nigeria. Until then, Bakassi had been part of Nigeria and was one of the 774 units of local government in the country. The United Nations subsequently mediated negotiations between Nigeria and Cameroon to ensure effective implementation of the ICJ decision. [...] Under the Greentree Agreement, Nigeria agrees to recognize Cameroon’s sovereignty over Bakassi and to withdraw its troops from the territory. In return, Cameroon guaranteed those living there "the exercise of the fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in international human rights law and in other relevant provisions of international law." In particular, Cameroon undertook not to compel Nigerian nationals to leave or to change their nationality. Cameroon also agreed to respect their culture, language, beliefs; protect their property and customary land rights, and "take every necessary measure to protect Nigerian nationals living in the zone from harassment or harm."
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2019-07-09): The border conflict between Cameroon and Nigeria was ignited by competing claims of sovereignty over the Bakassi peninsula. Cameroon brought the case to the ICJ to resolve its claims on Bakassi. The CNMC was then established in November 2002 by the UN Secretary-General at the request of Presidents Paul Biya and Olusegun Obasanjo of Cameroon and Nigeria respectively. The main goal of the CNMC is to facilitate the implementation of the 10 October 2002 judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the Cameroon-Nigeria boundary dispute. [...] The CNMC facilitated the peaceful transfer of authority over Bakassi to Cameroon through the Greentree Agreement, in conformity with the ICJ judgment. Bakassi is largely populated by persons identified as Nigerian nationals and it was the biggest stake in the border disagreement. Beyond Bakassi, the CNMC’s success in ensuring a peaceful resolution of the Parties’ competing claims and characterizations of their common land boundary is indeed a great achievement. It has required technical expertise, diplomacy, patience, perseverance, and the ability to inspire trust and confidence.
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Cameroon (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2013-08-14): Following a half-decade of preparations, Cameroon is assuming full control of the oil-rich peninsula of Bakassi, which has long been at the center of a territorial dispute with neighboring Nigeria. In keeping with a 2002 International Court of Justice ruling that ceded the territory to Yaounde, some 300,000 Nigerians living on the peninsula — approximately 90 percent of its population — must now obtain residence permits and be treated as foreign nationals living in Cameroon if they choose to stay after Wednesday's deadline. [...] "We had recalcitrant taxpayers which led to a protest," said Bernard Okalia Bilai, governor of Cameroon's South West Region where Bakassi is located. [...] But Cameroonian soldiers have clashed with local resistance groups. In 2001, for example, 11 Cameroonian soldiers were declared missing and two dead in what was reported as a pirate attack. A group called the Bakassi Freedom fighters claimed responsibility — vowing that Bakassi will find no peace under Cameroon's rule. The group said it was protesting the 2002 International Court of Justice decision and the United Nations-supervised Green Tree agreement which gave Bakassi to Cameroon.
Claim: Bakassi is a territory of Nigeria (Bakassi, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-05-31): Bakassi is a peninsula on the Gulf of Guinea. It lies between the Cross River estuary, near the city of Calabar and the Rio del Ray estuary on the east. It is governed by Cameroon, following the transfer of sovereignty from neighbouring Nigeria as a result of a judgment by the International Court of Justice.[1] On 22 November 2007, the Nigerian Senate rejected the transfer, since the Greentree Agreement ceding the area to Cameroon was contrary to Section 12(1) of the 1999 Constitution.[2] Regardless, the territory was completely ceded to Cameroon on 14 August 2008, exactly two years after the first part of it was transferred.[3][4] [...] Despite the formal handover of Bakassi by Nigeria to Cameroon in 2006, the territory of Bakassi is still mentioned as part of the 774 local governments in Nigeria as embodied in the First Schedule, Part I of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999.[18] After the Nigerian 2015 general elections, Nigeria's 8th National Assembly still accommodates the Calabar-South/Akpabuyo/Bakassi Federal Constituency represented by Hon. Essien Ekpeyong Ayi of the People's Democratic Party.[19]