statement<\/a> on Tuesday that Vanuatu\u2019s application concerns sovereignty over Umaenupne, also known as Matthew Island, and Umaeneg\/Leka, or Hunter Island.<\/p>\nRecommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
The case seeks closure on a decades-old territorial dispute rooted in the region\u2019s colonial history.\u00a0Far-right parties in France are seeking to use the case as a political weapon.<\/p>\n
The ICJ, also known as the World Court, will not immediately take up the case because France has not accepted the court\u2019s compulsory jurisdiction over disputes with other states.<\/p>\n
Vanuatu\u2019s application has been sent to Paris to determine whether France agrees to let the court hear the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo action will be taken in the proceedings unless and until France consents to the Court\u2019s jurisdiction in the case,\u201d the ICJ said.<\/p>\n
The dispute has become part of a wider debate over France\u2019s colonial legacy in the Pacific.<\/p>\n
Vanuatu, jointly ruled by France and Britain until independence in 1980, argues that its decolonisation will not be complete until the islands are returned under its control.<\/p>\n
The issue has also been seized upon by France\u2019s far right, which has accused President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s government of being prepared to surrender French territory, a claim Paris has repeatedly rejected.<\/p>\n
Vanuatu has challenged French sovereignty over the islands since gaining independence, arguing that the colonial-era arrangement placing them under French control was made without consulting the Indigenous population.<\/p>\n
Matthew and Hunter are uninhabited volcanic islands in the South Pacific, about 300 kilometres (190 miles) east of the French territory of New Caledonia and southeast of Vanuatu.<\/p>\n
While the islands themselves are small, sovereignty affects control over surrounding waters, including fishing rights and access to seabed resources.<\/p>\n
In 2025, France and Vanuatu agreed to new rounds of bilateral negotiations over the islands and their maritime boundaries after earlier talks in 2018 and 2019.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Vanuatu said negotiations had reached an impasse and that it would take the dispute to an international court.<\/p>\n
The ICJ, the United Nations\u2019 highest court, deals with disputes between states and frequently rules on disagreements over land and maritime boundaries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vanuatu says French control of islands is a relic of colonial past, as France\u2019s far right uses case…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1091,18,701,131,42,27345],"class_list":["post-42777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-hague","tag-asia-pacific","tag-europe","tag-france","tag-news","tag-the-hague","tag-vanuatu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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