PM Abhisit Bullish On International Court Of Justice (ICJ) Battle

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PM bullish on ICJ battle

By The Nation

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva expressed confidence yesterday that the result of the battle with Cambodia at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the Preah Vihear Temple would be good news for his government.

"We have made a clear stand at the court that Cambodia is not able to bring the case to the court as a new case, since Thailand has already complied with the 1962 court ruling without objections from any party," Abhisit told reporters.

Cambodia and Thailand relaunched their battle over Preah Vihear at the ICJ this year despite the court ruling in 1962 that "the temple is situated in the territory under sovereignty of Cambodia". Both sides interpreted the judgement differently, leading to a border dispute.

Phnom Penh asked the court to clarify whether Thailand had done enough to comply with the court ruling to withdraw troops and personnel from the temple and its vicinity. It also asked the court to grant provisional measures to have Thai troops withdraw and to ban all Thai military activities in the disputed area.

The court opened a public hearing on the provisional measures on Monday and Tuesday at the Peace Palace in The Hague, with both Thailand and Cambodia getting the chance to give oral testimony.

In his conclusion to the court, Thai Ambassador to the Hague Virachai Plasai, as the agent in the trial, said: "Thailand did accept the court's judgement in 1962 and fully complied with it and Cambodia herself did accept that Thailand has given full compliance with the decision."

Virachai said there was no dispute between the two countries over the meaning or scope of the judgement of 1962.

"The request for interpretation is an attempt to get the court to determine something that was not decided in 1962. On that basis, not only is there no prima facie jurisdiction, there is simply no justification for moving on to any question of interpretation," he said.

Thailand asked the court to remove the case introduced by Cambodia on April 28 from the general list, he said.

Legal expert for Thailand James Crawford told the court to reject the request because Cambodia was not asking for interpretation but for enforcement. The court has no jurisdiction to rule on that case, he said.

-- The Nation 2011-06-02

[bf2002]

hahahaha....this thing is funny.....if you look at the source of the "argument", you realize the topological map used to draw the border by the French (who controlled Cambodia at the time) was inaccurate and "in favor" of the Thais....so even with that advantage they still can't get the land they are seeking.

Cambodia has them dead to rights, and the fact they are pushing for an "interpretation" and not a new "court case" is obvious....Thailand is hoping to force a new court case because they know the existing evidence being throw out is their only hope....this is all a mess cause by the idiot PAD and yellow shirts that made this an issue on their platform....if they didn't push it, things would just stayed unresolved and "detente" forever, like so much in SE Asia and Thailand.

Now the democrats can't back down for fear of loss of face and looking weak.