On February 2, 2017, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on preliminary objections in Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v. Kenya), determining that it has jurisdiction over a maritime border dispute between Kenya and Somalia. According to the Court summary, Somalia instituted proceedings against Kenya in 2014, requesting that the Court  “determine, on the basis of international law, the complete course of the single maritime boundary dividing all the maritime areas appertaining to Somalia and to Kenya in the Indian Ocean, including the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles.” The ICJ rejected Kenya’s argument that a 2009 memorandum of understanding (MOU) obliged the two countries to negotiate a settlement outside of court and thus removed the dispute from the purview of the ICJ. The press release further notes that the Court found that the MOU did not prescribe a specific method of dispute resolution, which would have been necessary for the dispute to fall within Kenya’s reservation to its declaration of the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction.