On March 17, 2016, the International Court of Justice ruled that is has jurisdiction under Article XXXI of the Pact of Bogotá to determine the exact course of the boundary between Nicaragua and Colombia in the area of the continental shelf. According to the press release, Colombia argued that since the Court decided the issues in its 2012 judgment, Nicaragua’s claim was barred by the doctrine of res judicata. The Court disagreed, noting that the parties attributed different meaning to the operative clause of the 2012 judgment, where it found “that it cannot uphold the Republic of Nicaragua’s claim [inviting the Court to define a continental shelf boundary] contained in its final submission I(3).” The Court found “that it did not take a decision on whether or not Nicaragua had an entitlement to a continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from its coast” in the 2012 judgment, noting that “[t]he Judgment says nothing about the maritime areas located to the east of the line lying 200 nautical miles from the islands fringing the Nicaraguan coast, beyond which the Court did not continue its delimitation exercise, and to the west of the line lying 200 nautical miles from Colombia’s mainland.” However, the court points out that the reason it did not decide on the boundary was “because [Nicaragua] had yet to discharge its obligation, under paragraph 8 of Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea . . . to deposit with the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf  . . . the ‘final’ information on the limits of its continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles required by that provision.” Noting that Nicaragua had filed the required information by the time it instituted proceedings, the Court concluded that “the condition imposed by the Court in its 2012 Judgment in order for it to be able to examine the claim of Nicaragua contained in final submission I (3) has been fulfilled in the present case” and it was therefore not barred by res judicata from exercising jurisdiction.  The Court further declined to follow Colombia’s argument that the claims were inadmissible because “a recommendation made by the [Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf] CLCS is a prerequisite” for the Court’s ability to entertain the Nicaraguan Application.  It noted that “the procedure before the CLCS relates to the delineation of the outer limits of the continental shelf, and hence to the determination of the extent of the sea-bed under national jurisdiction” whereas the current proceedings were concerned with “the delimitation of the continental shelf, which is governed by Article 83 of UNCLOS and effected by agreement between the States concerned, or by recourse to dispute resolution procedures.”