The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will send two experts on marine boundaries next month to document and analyze the third trial against Nicaragua.
The experts will enter the waters of the Costa Rican Atlantic to collect information that will help them resolve the border conflict between the two countries.
Chancellor Manuel González explained that the decision of the ICJ to send the experts modified the schedule of the case. Following the visit, the hearings were moved to June 2017, but they were initially scheduled for December.
With this third trial, the government hopes the ICJ establishes the marine boundaries between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, following the lawsuit filed by the administration of Laura Chinchilla in February 2014.
The claim of Costa Rica arises because Nicaragua offered blocks of Costa Rican sea, both in the Pacific and in the Caribbean, for oil exploration and exploitation. On that occasion, the lawyer of the Foreign Ministry, Arnoldo Brenes, said that the blocks of Costa Rican sea offered in concession by Nicaragua reached 20,000 km² in the Pacific and 15,000 km² in the Caribbean Sea.
The government of Chinchilla accused that it was a strategy of the neighboring country to extend its maritime territory.
On May 28th of the previous year, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega signed the contract between the Nicaraguan Petroleum Company (Petronic) and the Norwegian company Statoil to explore maritime blocks for six years. Statoil will invest $ 20 million in the three phases of exploration.
Chancellor González confirmed that in this case the government will keep the same lawyers with whom Costa Rica triumphed in previous trials in the Calero Island case. They are the Argentine Marcelo Gustavo Kohen, the Australian Kate Parlett, the American Coalter G Lathrop, the British Samuel Wordsworth and Katherine del Mar and the Costa Rican Arnoldo Brenes. They are joined by the Costa Rican ambassador to Holland, Sergio Ugalde, and the national co-agent to the ICJ, Edgar Ugalde.