Hargeisa (SLpost)- Somaliland veteran and academic Prof. Abdisalam Yasin has called on the government of Somaliland to consider taking its long-running political and legal dispute with Somalia to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Prof Abdisalam Yasin, one of the founding members of Somali National Movement (SNM), argued that an international legal process for Somaliland’s statehood could provide a formal framework for addressing the competing claims of the two sides.
Speaking about the dispute between Somaliland and Somalia, Yasin maintains that the question of the 1960 union should be examined through international law rather than being left solely to political negotiations. He says Somalia would be reluctant to allow the matter to be brought before the ICJ because of unresolved legal questions surrounding the basis of the union.
Yasin specifically questioned whether there is a sufficiently clear legal instrument establishing the constitutional and legal basis of the union between the former State of Somaliland and Somalia in 1960.
Abdisalam Yasin Calls on Somaliland to challenge Somalia’s position through an international judicial process so that the underlying legal issues could be examined by an independent court.
A question of law as well as politics
The Scholar’s proposal places the Somaliland–Somalia dispute within a broader debate over whether some of its central questions could be addressed through international adjudication.
For Somaliland, such a route could involve putting the historical legal instruments surrounding the 1960 union, the subsequent constitutional developments, and the legal basis of Somalia’s continuing claim under judicial scrutiny.
For Somalia, any such process would raise questions concerning jurisdiction, statehood, the status of Somaliland before the Court and the precise legal dispute that an applicant sought to place before the ICJ.
Ultimately, whether the dispute could be heard would depend not simply on a political decision to approach the Court, but on the Court’s jurisdictional rules and the legal basis on which proceedings were brought.
Prof. Yasin’s proposal nevertheless adds a significant legal dimension to the longstanding Somaliland–Somalia dispute, challenging the parties to consider whether questions that have remained politically contentious for decades could instead be subjected to a formal international judicial process.
Somaliland has previously indicated that it was considering international legal avenues for its independence case. In January 2016, the then-Foreign Minister Dr. Saad Ali Shire said the government had studied a legal route for taking the recognition question to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Also In March 2022, Somaliland’s former Foreign Minister Essa Kayd Mohamoud said the government intended to take its independence case to international courts, specifically mentioning the ICJ, as well as African and Arab judicial institutions.
