On March 17, 2016, the International Court of Justice ruled that it had jurisdiction on the basis of Article XXXI of the Pact of Bogotá to hear claims regarding the alleged violations by Colombia of Nicaraguan rights in the maritime zones that the Court determined appertained to Nicaragua in a 2012 judgment. According to the press release, Colombia argued that the Court did not have jurisdiction under the Pact of Bogotá because Nicaragua had instituted the proceedings in November 2013, almost one year after Colombia’s notice of denunciation of the Pact. The Court disagreed, finding that Article XXXI of the treaty establishes its jurisdiction so long as the treaty is in force, which according to the Pact’s terms is for a period of one year after the notification of denunciation. Colombia also argued that a provision of the treaty “which stipulates that ‘[t]he denunciation shall have no effect with respect to pending procedures initiated prior to the transmission of the particular notification’, may be subject to an a contrario reading.” The Court disagreed, ruling “that it is not the denunciation per se that is capable of having an effect upon the jurisdiction of the Court under Article XXXI, but the termination of the treaty (as between the denouncing State and the other parties) which results from the denunciation.” Colombia further argued that the existence of a dispute is a condition for the Court’s jurisdiction and that there was no dispute between the parties when Nicaragua filed its claim. The Court noted that Nicaragua had submitted two separate claims and found that, regarding the claim involving Nicaragua’s sovereign rights inside its maritime zones, there was a history of disagreement between the parties about Colombia’s actions in Nicaragua’s waters, which included statements by high officials from both countries. It therefore found that there had been a dispute between the parties when the proceedings were initiated. The Court further rejected Colombia’s argument that it lacked jurisdiction because the dispute could still be settled by diplomatic negotiations, as outlined in Article II of the Pact, stressing that “neither of the Parties could plausibly maintain that the dispute between them could be settled by direct negotiations . . . [since] . . . there is nothing in the case file to indicate that the Parties had contemplated or were in a position to hold negotiations.”