President Uhuru Kenyatta says Kenya has rejected the ICJ court ruling on its maritime border case with Somalia and the country will not recognize it. In a statement on Wednesday morning, the president said the international court’s decision embodies a perpetuation of the ICJ’s jurisdictional overreach and raises a fundamental question on the respect of the sovereignty and consent of States to international judicial processes.
”While Kenya is not surprised at the decision, it is profoundly concerned by the import of the decision and its implications for the Horn of Africa region, and international law generally. At the outset, Kenya wishes to indicate that it rejects in totality and does not recognize the findings in the decision. The decision embodies a perpetuation of the ICJ’s jurisdictional overreach and raises a fundamental question on the respect of the sovereignty and consent of States to international judicial processes. International tribunals have jurisdiction only to the extent of consent by a State,” the statement from State House read in part.
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The president says Kenya, as an avid supporter of the rule of law, accepted the Court’s jurisdiction through declaration in 1965, with an objectively clear outline of certain excluded matters. At the time, President Uhuru says, Kenya never imagined that the ICJ would violate the declaration to the extent of imposing its mandate over expressly excluded matters.
”In an unfortunate development over the last decade, a trend has emerged of some supposedly international
organizations, being deployed as political tools against African countries. Sadly, this misfeasance has infected the ICJ, leading it to impose jurisdiction on a dispute it had neither jurisdiction nor competence,” the statement continues.
The president has vowed to stand firmly for the country’s integrity and that he intends to hand over the country to the next president with its territorial integrity intact.
”When I became President on 9 th April 2013, I took an oath to protect the territorial integrity of the Republic of Kenya. I do not intend to abrogate my solemn oath; and, I will do everything possible as President and Commander-in-Chief, to preserve the territory of this our great Republic and bequeath the same, intact and unencumbered, to the next President when my term expires in less than a year’s time.”
