What is the role of the Permanent Court of Arbitration?
The commission’s “final and binding” ruling, issued in July 2005, determined that Abyei was much larger than the northern government claimed. Abyei’s size matters because it affects how much oil is apportioned to the area and because in a referendum scheduled for 2011, Abyei’s residents are likely to vote to join Southern Sudan’s administration. The GNU rejected the ruling by insisting the commission had exceeded its mandate. Both sides agreed that an Abyei Arbitration Tribunal, sitting at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, should decide whether this assertion was valid and by extension whether the commission’s boundaries remained in force. They further agreed that if the court found the commission had exceeded its mandate, the court should make a fresh ruling on Abyei’s boundaries based on submissions by both parties. Why is it so important to resolve the dispute? The 1972 Addis Ababa peace agreement, which ended the first civil war (1956-1972), also included provisions
