For many years, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire have peacefully co-existed as maritime neighbours on the West Coast of Africa on the Atlantic Ocean. Both States are parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea(hereinafter referred to as “LOSC”), but did not delimit their maritime claims in accordance with the provisions of the LOSC. This notwithstanding, for over five decades, both countries carried on commercial activities such as fishing and petroleum exploration and production in their claimed maritime areas unhindered. Two years after Ghana’s discovery of hydrocarbons in commercial quantities on its claimed continental shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), Cote d’Ivoire formally served notice in 2009 that Ghana’s hydrocarbon discovery was within its maritime territory and intimated for the first time in over five decades that it would no longer recognise the international boundary that both countries have respected over the period. After several failed atte