The HAGUE, April 18 — Thai Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul expressed satisfaction with the Thai legal team’s statement delivery to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) during a hearing on the Preah Vihear temple dispute at The Hague, the Netherlands.
Mr Surapong said that what Thailand argued in the Court on Wednesday closely follows the approach prepared in advance, which was to request the Court to dismiss Cambodia’s request for interpretation of the 1962 judgment.
But if the Court finds Cambodia’s request admissible, he said, it should decide that there is no reason to interpret the judgment, as the judgment is clear and Thailand has already implemented all the obligations contained therein.
Thailand’s statement on Wednesday was the first round of the country’s presentation of oral arguments to the World Court in the public hearings following the Cambodian verbal statement on Monday.
Thailand’s legal team, led by Thai ambassador to the Netherlands Virachai Plasai, rejected Cambodia’s allegation that Thailand had made a “unilateral delimitation” of the vicinity of the Preah Vihear temple, and accused Cambodia of falsifying maps submitted to the court.
The Thai legal team also argued during the testimony that the territorial claim over an area of 4.6 square kilometres was new and arose from Cambodia’s wish to inscribe the Temple on the World Heritage List.
The line adopted by Thailand’s Council of Ministers in 1962 marks an area that corresponds to the “vicinity” of the temple in the 1962 judgment. Cambodia understood and accepted this as it never protested that Thailand had not withdrawn its forces from that area.
After the conclusion by the Thai side, Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf from Somalia asked Thailand and Cambodia to submit their own geographic coordinates of the area in the temple’s vicinity on their own maps to the court before April 26.
The judge also asked the two countries to present only new information at the second round of hearings which begins today.
Thailand’s foreign lawyers’ performances in court won much praise from many Thais who closely monitored the oral statement . They particularly showed appreciation of Romanian lawyer Alina Miron who explained the maps of the Thai-Cambodian border.
