Context

Kenya announced to not take part in proceedings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its maritime border dispute with Somalia.

 What is the dispute?

• Point of Disagreement: The main point of disagreement between the two neighbors is the direction in which their maritime boundary in the Indian Ocean should extend.
• Somalia’s stand: It says that the sea border should be an extension of the same direction in which their land border runs as it approaches the Indian Ocean, i.e. towards the southeast.
• Kenya’s stand: Kenya, on the other hand, argues that the territorial southeast border should take a 45-degree turn as it reaches the sea, and then run in a latitudinal direction, i.e. parallel to the equator. Such an arrangement would be advantageous for Kenya, whose coastline of 536 km is more than 6 times smaller than Somalia’s (3,333 km).
  

Why is this area important?

• The triangular area thus created by the dispute is around 1.6 lakh sq km large.
• boasts of rich marine reserves
• It is also believed to have oil and gas deposits