Vanuatu takes Pacific islands sovereignty dispute to ICJ

Vanuatu has filed an application at the International Court of Justice seeking sovereignty over two small Pacific islands controlled by France. The case concerns Umaenupne, also known as Matthew Island, and Umaeneg/Leka, also known as Hunter Island. The Hague-based court said the application was received on Tuesday and relates to a decades-old territorial dispute rooted in the colonial era.

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The court said the application has been sent to Paris, and no proceedings will move forward unless France agrees to the court's jurisdiction. France has not accepted the ICJ's compulsory jurisdiction for disputes with other states, which means the case cannot be heard automatically. Vanuatu's move follows its long-standing argument that the islands should be returned under its control as part of an unfinished decolonisation process.

The islands are uninhabited volcanic outcrops in the South Pacific, about 300 kilometres east of New Caledonia and southeast of Vanuatu. Although small, their sovereignty has wider significance because it affects surrounding waters, including fishing rights and access to seabed resources. Vanuatu has challenged French sovereignty over the islands since independence in 1980, saying the colonial-era arrangement was made without consulting the Indigenous population.

The dispute also sits within a broader debate over France's colonial legacy in the Pacific. Vanuatu was jointly ruled by France and Britain until independence, and the islands have remained a point of contention in bilateral relations. In 2025, France and Vanuatu agreed to new rounds of negotiations over the islands and their maritime boundaries after earlier talks in 2018 and 2019, but Vanuatu said earlier this year that those talks had reached an impasse.

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The case has also become politically sensitive in France, where far-right figures have used it to accuse President Emmanuel Macron's government of being willing to give up French territory. Paris has repeatedly rejected that claim. The ICJ said that no action will be taken unless and until France consents to the court's jurisdiction, leaving the immediate legal path uncertain.

What happens next depends on whether France agrees to let the court hear the case. If it does not, the application is unlikely to advance at the ICJ. The dispute is likely to remain tied to wider questions of decolonisation, maritime rights and Pacific sovereignty, with both governments under pressure to clarify their positions.

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