Some Observations on the Arbitral Award in the Taba Case
The following remarks do not constitute a detailed legal commentary on the 29 September 1988 Award delivered by the Arbitration Tribunal, which was established to resolve the dispute between Egypt and Israel regarding the Sinai frontier, particularly in the region of Taba. These remarks do not relate to the origin of the dispute or address the political context in which the arbitration took place. Nor do they dwell on the innovation of introducing, through the Compromis, a conciliation procedure entrusted to a Chamber of the Tribunal in the very midst of the arbitration proceedings. Still less do they make a detailed analysis of the claims of the two parties or of the Tribunal's opinion on each point in dispute. Leaving aside numerous other interesting aspects of the case, the modest purpose of these observations is to shed light on the originality of the position adopted by the Award in two aspects relating to the judicial function in border conflicts. When one considers the place occupied by this type of conflict in judicial disputes and in international arbitration, the interest which this Award deserves, beyond the specific circumstances which generated it, is obvious.