Dispute Over Oil-Rich Islands Brings Two OPEC Producers to Court

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on Monday began hearings in a dispute between OPEC’s African members Equatorial Guinea and Gabon over several small islands in an area in the Gulf of Guinea thought to contain significant oil resources. The dispute, running for around 50 years, is over the 30-hectare (74-acre) island of Mbanie and two smaller islets, Cocotier and Conga. Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, two neighbors in West Africa and oil producers part of the OPEC cartel, have asked the court in The Hague to settle the dispute…