On 10 October 2002, after eight years of proceedings at the International Court of Justice, judges in The Hague ruled in Cameroon's favor: sovereignty over the Bakassi peninsula, long disputed with Nigeria, belonged to Cameroon. The ruling rested on an Anglo-German agreement signed in 1913, when both territories were under colonial rule.
The verdict did not translate into an immediate handover. It took the Greentree Agreement, signed in June 2006 under United Nations auspices, to organize a phased withdrawal of Nigerian troops. Two years later, on 14 August 2008, Nigeria completed the transfer: its army, police and administration left Bakassi, closing a decades-old border dispute.
The case is now regularly cited as a textbook example of settling a territorial dispute peacefully through the courts rather than by force.
Sources: International Court of Justice, United Nations, ACCORD (African Journal on Conflict Resolution).
