El Salvador–Honduras border

The Soccer War

By 1969 some 300,000 Salvadorans, about 15 percent of Honduras’s population, had moved into Honduras from their small, crowded country, and competition for jobs, trade and land bred resentment. A new Honduran land law barred Salvadorans from owning land in some areas, and the undelineated border added to squatting and friction.^[3]

After reports that Honduran fans had been assaulted at a World Cup qualifier in San Salvador, anti-Salvadoran riots swept Honduras from 16 June; more than 20,000 Salvadorans fled home, and El Salvador broke off relations. On the evening of 14 July El Salvador launched air attacks on Honduras, and the Organization of American States sent a committee to seek a ceasefire.^[3]

“A further source of friction between the two states is their undelineated border”^[3]

The six sectors

A General Treaty of Peace in 1980 delimited part of the border but left six sectors open. In 1986 the two countries asked the International Court of Justice to settle them and to decide the status of the islands and waters of the Gulf of Fonseca; Nicaragua joined to protect its rights in the gulf.^[2]

In its judgment of 11 September 1992 a chamber of the court drew the line in all six sectors, taking the boundaries of the Spanish colonial provinces at independence as its basis while allowing evidence of later administration. It gave El Tigre island to Honduras and Meanguera and Meanguerita to El Salvador, and found the gulf’s waters to be historic waters shared by the three coastal states.^[2]

In 2002 El Salvador asked for revision of the southernmost sector, arguing that the Goascorán River had abruptly changed course in the 18th century. On 18 December 2003 the court refused, finding that the 1992 decision rested on El Salvador’s own conduct after independence, so the river’s old course would not have changed it.^[1]