Egypt/Israel dispute over Taba 1988 – Beachfront
boundaries and a missing marker
The dispute over Taba concerned the location of 14
border markers demarcating the boundary between Israel and
Egypt on the Sinai Peninsula. It was left-over from the
1979 treaty under which Israel agreed to withdraw from
Sinai. At stake were some few hundred square metres of
beachfront, but also a large and expensive resort complex
under Israeli ownership.
Following the treaty the two parties only agreed to
refer the dispute to a five-person tribunal in 1986, having
failed to resolve the issues at stake through negotiation.
The tribunal was restricted in its scope to deciding on
either the position put forward by the Egyptian side, or
that of the Israelis - but not to decide on new positions
for the boundary markers. The Treaty’s starting point was
the treaty provision which stipulated that "the permanent
boundary between Egypt and Israel is the recognized
international boundary between Egypt and the former
mandated territory of Palestine," and in arriving at its
decision heavily relied on the location of boundary pillars
during the mandate period - i.e., between 1923 and
1948.
Israel argued that the boundary should be construed as
that which had been established in an agreement between
Egypt and Turkey in 1906, and pursuant to which pillars had
been erected at intervisible points between Egyptian and
Ottoman territory. The tribunal members however agreed that
the relevant pillar locations were of those that had been
in existence at the time of the mandate.
The most critical pillar location was that of the final
pillar at Ras Taba, and both parties submitted documentary
evidence which they believed would support their claim
regarding its historical location. The tribunal ultimately
gave weight to photographic evidence for the existence of a
pillar on the Taba shoreline which had been removed prior
to 1970 in an Israeli road-building scheme.
For nine of the remaining pillars, the tribunal applied
a straightforward methodology. It drew a straight-line
connecting the adjacent agreed pillars, and decided in
favour of each pillar nearest to the line - and in so doing
awarded five pillars to Egypt, and four to Israel. Four
other pillars were awarded to Egypt.