Costa Rica Files ICJ Case Against Nicaragua

This is all you can do, I suppose, when you don’t have an army to resist invasions (and can they bring Google in as a third party?)

(CNN) — Costa Rica has taken its border dispute with Nicaragua to international court, repeating claims that its territory has been invaded.

In a statement Thursday, Costa Rica’s foreign ministry said the country had filed a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, to end a situation that “threatens imminent and irreparable harm” to Costa Rica.

The suit asks the court to stop “the construction of a canal on Costa Rican soil,” according to the statement.

Tensions between Nicaragua and Costa Rica have flared over Calero Island, a parcel of land on the Atlantic coast. Nicaragua denies its troops are in Costa Rican territory. Costa Rica claims it has been invaded.

Costa Rica claims that in addition to the Nicaraguan troops, a dredging project in the river is dumping sediment on its side of the border, and that a Costa Rican flag in the area was replaced with a Nicaraguan flag.