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Honduras Boundary Disputes
A two-centuries-old border dispute between El Salvador
and
Honduras appears to have been resolved in 1993. At issue
in this
territorial dispute was ownership of six contested
bolsones
(pockets) of land encompassing a total area of 436.9
square
kilometers as well as two islands (Meanguera and El Tigre)
in the
Golfo de Fonseca, and right of passage for Honduras to the
Pacific
Ocean from its southern coast.
The origins of the boundary dispute date back to the
eighteenth
century when colonial boundaries were ill defined. In the
late
nineteenth century, numerous attempts at mediation failed
to settle
the dispute. The issue continued to fester in the
twentieth century
and was a contributing factor in the outbreak of war
between the
two countries in 1969
(see War with El Salvador
, ch. 1).
The
General Peace Treaty, signed by El Salvador and Honduras
on October
30, 1980, in Lima, Peru, represented the first real
breakthrough on
this border dispute. The peace treaty stated that the two
parties
agreed to submit the boundary dispute to the International
Court of
Justice (ICJ) in The Hague if they failed to reach a
border
agreement after five years of negotiations. By 1985 the
two
countries had not reached an agreement. In 1986 the case
reached
the ICJ, which handed down a ruling on September 11, 1992.
Both
countries accepted the ICJ decision, and a commission was
established to decide the citizenship of residents of the
bolsones.
Of the 436.9 square kilometers in dispute, 300.6 square
kilometers were granted to Honduras, and 136.3 were
granted to El
Salvador. Of the six bolsones, Honduras was awarded
complete
control of one and approximately 80 percent of another.
The
remaining four were split with El Salvador. El Salvador
was awarded
possession of the island of Meanguera, and Honduras was
awarded
control of the island of El Tigre. More importantly for
Honduras,
the ICJ ruling assured Honduras's free passage to the
Pacific
Ocean. The ICJ also decided that the Golfo de Fonseca does
not
represent international waters because of the two
countries' shared
history as provinces of the same colonial power and
subsequent
membership in the United Provinces of Central America. The
court
ruled, rather, that the Golfo de Fonseca is a
condominium, with
control being shared by El Salvador, Honduras, and
Nicaragua. The
latter country also has a coastline on the gulf. The
decision
allowed for the possibility that the three nations could
divide the
waters at a later date if they wished to do so.
Data as of December 1993
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