Vanuatu tries to take island dispute with France to U.N.'s top court

The small Pacific Island state of Vanuatu is trying to bring a decades-old dispute with France over two uninhabited islands before the International Court of Justice, the United Nations' top court said on Tuesday.

The ICJ, also known as the World Court, will not immediately accept the case because France has not agreed to so-called compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ over its disputes with other states. Vanuatu's claim has been sent to Paris to see whether France agrees to let the court take it on, the ICJ said. 

"No action will be taken in the proceedings unless and until France consents to the Court’s jurisdiction in the case," the ICJ said in a press statement.

The French government did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment on the matter. 

Vanuatu's case focuses on Matthew Island and Hunter Island, two volcanic islands in the South Pacific some 300 kilometres (190 miles) east of the French territory of New Caledonia and south-east of Vanuatu. While the islands are small and no one lives there, sovereignty over them also determines who controls the territorial waters surrounding them, which impacts fishing rights and exploitation of seabed resources.  

In 2025 France and Vanuatu agreed to new rounds of bilateral negotiations about the islands and the demarcation of the maritime boundaries between the territories after two earlier rounds of talks in 2018 and 2019. Earlier this year Vanuatu said the new talks had reached an impasse and it would take its case to an international court.

The ICJ, the United Nations' highest court, deals with disputes between states and violations of international treaties. It often rules on disputes between countries about land and maritime boundaries.