ABSTRACT
Hawar is by far the largest of a group of 16 barren islands and reefs in the Gulf of Bahrain. The Hawar group is uninhabited apart from the occasional presence of Bahraini military forces. The Hawar issue dates back to the 1930s and a disagreement over oil concessions between the Bahrain Petroleum Company and Petroleum Concessions Ltd in Qatar. In February 1981, Qatar and Bahrain, together with Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, formed the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC). On 8 July 1991, a communiqu from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) reported that Qatar had filed a case against Bahrain over the Hawar Islands. Bahrain maintained that the ICJ was not entitled to deal with the dispute, which ought to be resolved through bilateral talks or through mediation by other GCC states, probably Saudi Arabia. Apart from any question of territorial integrity, the islands are important as a result of the hydrocarbon resource potential of the area.
