ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a detailed analysis of the 2009 Abyei Arbitration and analyses the outcome of the case reflecting on the seven New Delhi Principles. It discusses how three principles – equity, public participation and access to information and justice, and good governance – are embedded as fundamental premises of the entire process due to their inclusion in the agreements underlying the dispute. The most important first point to make is that the Abyei arbitration was concerned with applying the Abyei Protocol in the context of a civil war. The Abyei arbitration was concerned with the vital terms of Arbitration agreement delimiting the Abyei area, and in particular the question of the case was whether the Abyei Boundary Commission (ABC) experts exceeded their mandate as per Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). The Abyei arbitration discussed several decisions of International Court of Justice (ICJ) on human rights issue in particular and hence applied human rights requirements in context of pre-existing traditional rights.
