Egypt-Israel Taba dispute

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.

For the arbitration decision, please see the Menas Borders eLibrary.