Abelardo Will Decree the Delimitation of San Andrés and Reopen the Dispute with Nicaragua

President Abelardo de la Espriella announced that Colombia will issue a decree defining the maritime baselines of San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina. He said it would be signed on November 30, the island's birthday. Baselines are the reference lines used to measure maritime zones.

The proposed approach would draw the reference around the complete archipelago. According to Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara, waters inside that outline could become internal waters. The islands could then be defended as one territory, rather than island by island. The announcement directly challenges the way the 2012 maritime boundary operates.

The move reopens tensions with Nicaragua. De la Espriella said Colombia would not give up a nautical mile, reef, or its fishermen. Lara called the 2012 ruling inapplicable in its literal wording and said Colombia would seek good-faith dialogue. He also warned that the Navy would defend Colombia's sovereignty at sea.

Maritime baselines are reference lines drawn along a country's coast or around relevant islands. A country measures its maritime zones outward from those lines. They therefore help determine the reach of areas such as territorial seas, exclusive economic zones, and continental shelves.

The article describes the baseline as the reference used to measure a country's maritime space. In this case, Colombia proposes drawing one around the archipelago as a whole. If that outline is accepted, the waters enclosed by it could be treated as internal waters, according to Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara.

That distinction matters because the baseline affects how maritime space is organized and defended. Colombia says a single archipelago-wide outline would support treating San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina as one territory. It would also challenge the practical effect of the maritime boundary established by the International Court of Justice in 2012.

Internal waters are maritime waters on the landward side of a country's baseline. Treating the enclosed waters as Colombia's internal waters would give the archipelago a unified legal and defensive framework. The article presents this as a way to regard the islands and surrounding waters as one territorial unit.

The proposed mechanism is a baseline drawn around San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina together. Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara said the sea inside that outline could become internal water. He contrasted that approach with defending the islands one by one, describing the archipelago as a single, inseparable whole.

The change would have major political and legal implications because the 2012 ICJ ruling established a maritime boundary benefiting Nicaragua in areas Colombia considered its own. President De la Espriella says Colombia will not surrender territory or abandon fishermen. Lara says the government will discuss the issue with Nicaragua in good faith, while the Navy would defend sovereignty.

The International Court of Justice made two important decisions in 2012. It ratified Colombia's sovereignty over San Andrés, Providencia, and the other islands of the archipelago. At the same time, it established a new maritime boundary between Colombia and Nicaragua.

The boundary changed control over maritime spaces around the islands. The court recognized Nicaragua's rights over areas that Colombia considered Colombian maritime territory. The article describes the transferred area as approximately 75,000 square kilometers. Colombia's current government argues that the ruling treats the archipelago as separated enclaves rather than an inseparable unit.

The 2012 decision remains the central source of the dispute. President De la Espriella says Colombia will not give up a nautical mile, a reef, or its fishermen. Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara calls the judgment inapplicable in its literal wording, while saying Colombia will pursue good-faith dialogue with Nicaragua. The government has now announced new baseline legislation.

The maritime area recognized for Nicaragua in the 2012 ICJ ruling was approximately 75,000 square kilometers. This was not a transfer of sovereignty over the islands themselves. The court confirmed that the islands belonged to Colombia while changing the maritime boundary between the two countries.

The figure represents waters and maritime spaces that Colombia had considered its own. The ruling therefore affected the surrounding sea rather than Colombia's sovereignty over San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina. That distinction explains why the decision remains politically sensitive in Colombia.

The current government says the ruling should not be applied literally because it separates the archipelago with what Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara called foreign sea. President De la Espriella has announced a decree defining baselines around the complete archipelago. The government says this could allow the enclosed waters to be treated as internal waters, while promising dialogue and naval defense.

Nicaragua asked the court to extend its continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical miles it was entitled to claim. Colombia objected because the proposed extension would overlap San Andrés and Providencia and Colombia's exclusive economic zone. The dispute concerned rights over the seabed and the waters above it.

The ICJ rejected Nicaragua's request in its July 2023 ruling. Its key principle was that a continental shelf cannot be extended when it overlaps another state's maritime area. The court therefore refused to create the claimed extension beyond 200 nautical miles.

The article describes the problem that approval would have caused: Nicaragua could have controlled the maritime floor while Colombia controlled the surface waters. The court avoided that legal confusion. The ruling was the latest decision mentioned in the dispute and favored Colombia, although Colombia's government is now challenging the literal application of the earlier 2012 boundary.

The article does not detail all four legal categories, so these distinctions come from international maritime law. Internal waters lie landward of the baseline and are generally under the coastal state's sovereignty. The territorial sea extends outward from the baseline, usually up to 12 nautical miles, with sovereignty subject to navigation rules.

An exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, can extend up to 200 nautical miles. The coastal state generally controls resources and certain economic activities there, but the waters are not the same as internal waters. A continental shelf concerns the seabed and subsoil, not automatically the water above them. Its legal limits can differ from the EEZ.

These distinctions explain the Nicaragua dispute. Nicaragua sought a continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles, but the ICJ said it could not overlap another state's maritime area. The article warns that this might otherwise leave Nicaragua with the seabed while Colombia retained the surface waters, creating legal confusion.