The second paragraph of the Memorandum of Understanding provides Kenya the fitting to assert a maritime territory of Somalia’s:
“The delimitation of the continental shelf between the Republic of Kenya and the Somali Republic (hereinafter collectively known as “the 2 coastal States”) has not but been settled. This unresolved delimitation situation between the 2 coastal States is to be thought-about as a “maritime dispute”. The claims of the 2 coastal States cowl an overlapping space of the continental shelf which constitutes the “space underneath dispute”.
In essence, the Transitional Federal Authorities of Somalia (TFG) accepted the argument that Kenya has a proper to assert a portion of the Somali maritime territory, and that the dispute will be settled by each nations.
No nation has ever signed a MOU to place its territorial integrity into dispute. Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame, the previous TFG Minister for Nationwide Planning and the Worldwide Cooperation signed the MOA on Somalia’s behalf.
Between 2005 and 2007 Kenya approached the Transitional Federal Authorities of Somalia led by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed about “Memorandum of Understanding” on a non-existent sea boundary dispute. A casual assembly was held in Nairobi between a Kenyan diplomat and Somali diplomat. Kenya proposed an MOU with Somalia.
The Somali diplomat shared Kenya’s initiative with the previous Somalia Overseas Minister Ismail Hurreh Bubaa. Mr Buubaa informed the Somali diplomat that there was no maritime dispute between Somalia and Kenya and that the ocean boundary between Kenya and Somalia was delimited.
In January 2009 a brand new Somali President was elected in Djibouti following the resignation of President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed in December 2008. The Transitional Federal Authorities of Somalia signed the MOU on April seventh 2009, virtually three months Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was sworn in because the President of the Federal Republic of Somalia.
In 2016 President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud accused his predecessor President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame, each Presidential Candidates then and now, and Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, a former Prime Minister and a 2017 Presidential Candidate, of excessive treason.
“It’s unlucky that those that haven’t taken severely the chance to our maritime territory are actually working for the best workplace of the nation. Individuals should suppose twice about whom they elect to the best workplace of the nation” stated President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in 2016.
It’s hardly a self-serving assertion in an election time. Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame together with Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke resolved to grant Kenya the fitting to assert a Somali maritime territory. Nobody was held accountable for damaging Somalia’s nationwide curiosity.
Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia ( ARS) dominated the post-2008 Transitional Federal Authorities. As a face-saving gimmick for President Sharif, Prime Minister Sharmarke and Minister Abdishakur, the previous Transitional Federal Parliament rejected the Memorandum of Understanding.
A nationwide legislature can’t rescind a Memorandum of Understanding between two sovereign nations.
The Memorandum of Understanding questions Somalia’s maritime boundaries and article 1 of 1972 regulation promulgated by Main Normal President Mohamed Siad Barre.
. The article stipulates:
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud reaffirmed Somalia’s maritime boundaries in a proclamation dated June thirtieth, 2014:
Earlier than 1991 the Somali Authorities representatives attended conferences on the regulation of sea. In 1984 Dr Mohamud Ali Turyare, a former Professor of Worldwide Legislation on the Somali Nationwide College represented Somalia at one such convention on United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea.
How Kenya Exploits the MOU with Somalia
On January twenty fourth 2017 Kenya expressed reservations about some articles of the Conference on the regulation of the ocean:
“The Authorities of the Republic of Kenya pursuant to Article 298 (1)(a)(i) of the United Nations Conference on the Legislation of the Sea, 1982, declares that it doesn’t settle for any of the procedures offered for in Half XV Part 2 of the Conference with respect to disputes in regards to the interpretation or software of Articles 15, 74 and 83 regarding sea boundary delimitations, or these involving historic bays or titles. The Republic of Kenya reserves the fitting at any time by a notification addressed to the Secretary Normal of the United Nations so as to add to, amend, or withdraw any of the foregoing reservations. Such notification shall be efficient on the date of their receipt by the Secretary Normal.”
Kenya has reservations about part 2 of article 286 which states:
“Topic to part 3, any dispute in regards to the interpretation or software of this Conference shall, the place no settlement has been reached by recourse to part 1, be submitted on the request of any social gathering to the dispute to the courtroom or tribunal having jurisdiction underneath this part.”
In 2014, the Federal Authorities of Somalia submitted the maritime dispute to the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice, a choice backed up by the very article about which Kenya has expressed reservations.
Each Somalia and Kenya signed the United Nations Conference on the Legislation of the Sea on December tenth 1982. Kenya prefers out of courtroom settlement to adjudication by the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice.
In 2009, a delegation led by the previous Prime Minister of the Transitional Federal Authorities of Somalia Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke visited London.
At a ceremony for the visiting delegation held in London Abdirisaq Osman Jurrile, Posts and Telecommunications Minister, defended the choice to signal the Memorandum of Understanding with Kenya. “Who said ‘we have sold our sea’”? I swear to God we did not sell our sea” he informed the viewers.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, is a member of, together with Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame and Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the Alliance of Somali Presidential Candidates. He criticised the incumbent President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed for not placing effort into successful the maritime dispute with Kenya.
The irony is {that a} group of Somali politicians who got here to the political scene on nationalist sentiment in opposition to the Ethiopian intervention in Somalia had signed a Memorandum of Understanding and plunged Somalia right into a maritime dispute that Kenya has cunningly manufactured.
If the identical folks, who put Somalia in a troublesome authorized place, are searching for the Somali Presidency, there isn’t any assure that Somali leaders is not going to signal agreements that injury Somalia’s territorial integrity.
This text first appeared within the © Puntland Post, 2021 and is republished with permission
