Temple of Preah Vihear - Judgment (Merits)

The following information from the Registry of the Xntern8tional
Court of Justice is communlcated to the Press:

The International Court of Jus$ice today (15 June 1962) delivered
its Judgrnent in the case eoncerning the Temple of Preah Vihear (Merits)
betwe en Cambodia and Thailand.

tEroceedings were institut ed on 6 October 1957 by an Application
of the Governent of Cambodi~; the Government of Thailand having raised
two preliminary objections, the Court, by its hdgment of 26 May 1961,
found that it had jusisdiction.

Ln 3s Judgment delivered today, the Court, by nine votes to three,
faund that the Temple of Preah Vihear was aituated 1i1territory under
the sovereignty of Cambodia and, in consequence, that Thailand was under
an obligation ta withdraw any military or police forces,or other guards
or keepers, statibned by her at the Temple, os in its vrlcinity on
Cambodian territory.

By seven votes to five, the Court found that Thailand rms under
an obligation to restore to Cambodia any sculptures, stelae, fragments
of monuments, sandstone model and ancient pottery which might, since
the date of the occupationof the Temple by Thailand in 1954, have
been removed from the Temple or the Temple area by the Thaiauthorities.

Judge Tanaka and Judge Morelli appended to the Judgment a Joint
Declarait on. Vice-Presi ent IJfaro and Judge Sb Gerald Fit murice
appended.Separate Opinions; Judges Moreno Quktana, Wellington Koo and
Sir PercySpender appended Dissenthg Opinions.

In its Judgment, the Court found that the subject of'thedispute
was sovereignty over the region of the Temple of Preah Vihear. This
ancient sanctuary, partially in ruins,stoodon a promontory of the
Dangrek range of mountains which constituted the boundary between
Cambodiaand Thailand, The dispute had its fons et origo in the
bowldary settlements mde in the period 1904-190 8ctween France, then
conduct ing the foreign relations of -do-China, and Siam. The ap~llcation

of the Treaty of 13 Febmiary 1904 Mas, in particular, involved. That
Treaty established the generalcharacter of the frontier the exact
boundaryof which wai to be delimcted by a Franco-Simese Wxed
Commission. .I

In the eastern sector of the Dangrek range, Ln which PreahVlhear
was situated, the frontierwas to follow the watershed line. For the
purpose of delwting that frontier, it \vas agreed, at a meethg heLd
on 2 December 1906, that the Mixed Commission should traie1 dong the
Dangrek range carrying out al1 the necessaryreconnaissance, and that
a survey officerof the French sectionof the Commission should survey
the whole of the eastern part of the range. It had not been contested

that the Presidents of the French and Simeso sections dulymade this
journey, in the çourse of rhich they visited the Templeof Preah VThear,In January-February 1907, the President of the French section had
reported to his Crovernment that the frontier-lhe had been definitely
established. It therefore seernedcléar that a frontler had been aurveyed
and fixed, although there was no record of any decisionand no referenee
to the Dangrek region & any minutes of the meetma of the Cornmission
after 2 December1906. ~oriover, at the tlme,rhen the Commission

rnight have met for the purgose of winding up lts work, attention was
directed towards the conclusion of a further Franco-Siames beaundary
treaty, the Treaty of' 23 Mmch 1907,

The f&al stage of the. delimitation was the preparatio nf rriap.
The SiameseGoverment, which did not dispose of adequate tsohiaid r?~c?.nshad
requested that French officers should map the frontier region. These
rriapswere completed in the autm of 1907 by a team of French officers,
some of whom had been membeysof the hed Conpiçsion, and they were
comunicated to the Siamese kvernment in 1908. .:,mongs ttem was a
map of the Dangrek range showing Preah Vihear on the Cambodian siàe.
Itwss on that map (fued gs Ianex I to its Mernorial) that Camboàia

had principally relied in support of her elaimto savereignty over
the Temple. Thailauid, on the other hand,had bontendeci that the map,
not being the work of the MixedCommission, had no binding çharacter;
that the frontier lndicated on it was net the true watershed line
and thaé the true water~hed line muid place the Temple in Thailand;
that the map had never been accepted by Thalland or, alternatively,
that if Thailand had iz'ccepted it, she had. done so only because of a
rnistaken belief that thé frontier indicated borrespcinded with the
water'shed Pine.

The Amex 1 mp was never formallyapproved by the Mixed Commission,
!hile
which had ceased to funciion some months before its production.
there couldbe no reasonable doubt that it was base'd 'onthe work of the
surveyjng officers in the Dangreksector,the Court nerrerbhclsss concludeci
that , in itis inception, 'it had no bindingch,aracter. It was clear
f~omthe record, however,that the maps were communicate do the
SiameseGovernment as purporting to represent the outcorne of the work
of delimitation; since there was no xeaction on the part of the
Siamese authorities, either thenor for mny years,they must be held
to have acquiesced. The maps were rnareaver cammunicatedto the Siamese
rnembers of the Mixed Commission, who said nothing, to the Siamese
Mjnister of the Interior, Prince Damrang, wkio thanked the French
Enister in Bangkok for them, and tû the Shrnese provincial governors,
someof whom knew of Preah Vihear, Ifthe Siamese authorities accepted
the ?mex 1 map withoutinvestigation, they eould not now plead any

errar vitiating the roality of their consent.

The Siamese Gaverment and later the Thai Goverment had raised
no query about the 'nnex 1 map prior'to its ncgothations: wlth Cambodia
in Bangkok in 1958. But in 1934-199 5 surveg had established a
divergence between the map line and the true line of the watershed,
and other maps had been produced show% the Temple as behg in
Thailand,: Thailand had nevertheles sontuiued alsota use and indeed
to publish maps showing Preah ~ihe& as lying in Cambodia, Moreover,
in the course of the nezotiations for the 1925 and 1937 Franco-Siamese
Treaties, which confirrned the existing frontiers, and in 19&7 in
Washington before the Franco-Simese ConciliatioC nommission ,-bwould
have been natural for ThaiLand ta raise the matter: she did not do so,

The natural &ference was that she had acceptedthe frontier at Preah
Vihear as it was drawn on the map, irrespective of its correspondence
with the watershed lhe. Thailand had stated that having been, at
al1 material thes, in possession of Preah Vihear,she had had no \

need .,..need to raise the mtter; shs had indeed instanced the ects of
her
administrativ author ities on the greund as evidence that
she had never accepted the Annex 1 lhe at Preah Vihear. But the
Court found it difficult to regard such local acts as negativing
the consistent attitude af the central dhorities, Horeover, when
in 1930 Prince Dmrorrg, on a visit to the Temple, las official*roceivcd
there by the French Resident for the adjoining Cambodian province,
Siam failed to react.

From these facts, the Court concluded thatThailand had accepted
the finnexI map. Even if there weremy doubt in this connection,
Thailandwas now precludedfrom ssserting that shehad not accepted
it shce France and Cambodia had relied upon hcr ecceptance and she

had for fifty years enjoyed ?UC~ benefits as the Treaty of 1904 .ad
conferred on her. kirthemore, the acceptance of the .innex 1 mp
caused it to enter the treaty eettlement; the Parties had at that
the sdopted an interpretati?n_ of that settlernent which caused the
map line to prevail over the provisions of the Traaty and, as there
was no reason ta think that the Parties had sttached any special
importance to the line of Vie mtershed as such, as cornparedwith
the over-rlding importance of a final regdation of their own frontiers,
the Court considered that the interpretation to be given now would

be the same.

The Courttiierefore felt bound to pronounce Ln favour of the
frontier indicated an the ,>:nn exmap in the disputed areaand it
became unnecessary to consider whether the line as mapped did in.
fact correspond to the true water shed line.

For these reasons, the Court upheld the submissions of Garnbodia
conceming sovereignty over Prsah Vfiezr.

The Hague,15 Jurie1962.