In 2008, the Government of Sudan (GoS) and the Sudan People''s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) deposited an arbitration agreement with the Permanent Court of Arbitration. In an unique fast track procedure an international arbitration tribunal had to determine in accordance with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, in particular the Abyei Protocol, the Interim National Constitution and general principles of law, whether the Abyei Border Commission (ABC) exceeded its mandate, which was to define and demarcate the area of the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms transferred to Kordofan in 1905. In case of excess, the parties entrusted the tribunal to redefine the boundaries. To guarantee the transparency of the procedure all documents were made publically available as well as all hearings. The procedure and the 270-pages long final award from 2009 constitute an innovative example of an international dispute settlement between a state and a secessionist movement about an area that could become part of the territory of a new state and the future border between them. Although the official result of the Sudanese referendum of January 2011 is still open and the Abyei referendum has been put on hold, it is widely predicted that the South will secede from the North. The GoS, the SPLM/A and international organisations already started to prepare the next rounds of negotiations for a peaceful divorce. A key question in this process will be whether the parties will comply with the Abyei Award. This paper will analyse whether the Abyei-Arbitration is a success-story that could serve as a precedent for other territorial disputes. It will discuss the legal-political implications of arbitration procedures as dispute settlement mechanisms in intra-state conflicts and will take a comparative perspective to other secessionist conflicts and other international dispute settlement mechanisms.
