Bhutan

Bhutan cooperates with India to expel Indian Nagaland

separatists; lacking any treaty describing the boundary, Bhutan and

China continue negotiations to establish a common boundary alignment

to resolve territorial disputes arising from substantial

cartographic discrepancies, the largest of which lie in Bhutan's

northwest and along the Chumbi salient

Bolivia

Chile and Peru rebuff Bolivia's reactivated claim to restore

the Atacama corridor, ceded to Chile in 1884, but Chile offers

instead unrestricted but not sovereign maritime access through Chile

for Bolivian natural gas and other commodities; an accord placed the

long-disputed Isla Suarez/Ilha de Guajara-Mirim, a fluvial island on

the Rio Mamore, under Bolivian administration in 1958, but

sovereignty remains in dispute

Bosnia and Herzegovina

sections along the Drina River remain in

dispute between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia; discussions

continue with Croatia on several small disputed sections of the

boundary related to maritime access that hinder final ratification

of the 1999 border agreement

Botswana

Botswana still struggles to seal its border from thousands

of Zimbabweans who flee economic collapse and political persecution;

Namibia has long supported, and in 2004 Zimbabwe dropped objections

to, plans between Botswana and Zambia to build a bridge over the

Zambezi River at Kazungula crossing, thereby de facto recognizing

the short, but not clearly delimited, Botswana-Zambia boundary

Bouvet Island

none

Brazil

unruly region at convergence of Argentina-Brazil-Paraguay

borders is locus of money laundering, smuggling, arms and illegal

narcotics trafficking, and fundraising for extremist organizations;

two uncontested boundary disputes with Uruguay over Isla Brasilera

at the tripoint with Argentina at the confluence of the

Quarai/Cuareim and Uruguay rivers, and in the 235 square kilometer

Invernada River region over which tributary represents the

legitimate source of the Quarai/Cuareim River; the Itaipu Dam

reservoir covers over a once contested section of Brazil-Paraguay

boundary west of Guaira Falls on the Rio Parana; an accord placed

the long-disputed Isla Suarez/Ilha de Guajara-Mirim, a fluvial

island on the Rio Mamore, under Bolivian administration in 1958, but

sovereignty remains in dispute

British Indian Ocean Territory

Mauritius claims the Chagos

Archipelago including Diego Garcia; in 2001, the former inhabitants

of the Chagos Archipelago, evicted in 1967 and 1973 and now residing

chiefly in Mauritius, were granted UK citizenship and the right to

repatriation; in May 2007, the UK Court of Appeals upheld the May

2006 High Court of London judgment reversing the UK government's

2004 Orders of Council that banned habitation on the islands; a

small group of Chagossians visited Diego Garcia in April 2006;

repatriation is complicated by the exclusive US military lease of

Diego Garcia that restricts access to the largest viable island in

the chain

British Virgin Islands

none

Brunei

Brunei and Malaysia agreed in September 2008 to resolve their

offshore and deepwater seabed dispute, resume hydrocarbon

exploration, and renounce any territorial claims along their land

boundary; despite no public territorial claim to Louisa Reef, Brunei

implicitly lays claim by including it within the natural

prolongation of its continental shelf and basis for a seabed median

with Vietnam; the 2002 "Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the

South China Sea" has eased tensions in the Spratly Islands but falls

short of a legally binding "code of conduct" desired by several of

the disputants

Bulgaria

none

Burkina Faso

in September 2007, Economic Community of West African

States (ECOWAS) intervened to attempt to resolve the dispute over

two villages along the Benin-Burkina Faso border that remain from a

2005 ICJ decision; in recent years citizens and rogue security

forces rob and harass local populations on both sides of the poorly

defined Burkina Faso-Niger border; despite the presence of more than

9,000 UN forces (UNOCI) in Cote d'Ivoire since 2004, ethnic conflict

continues to spread into neighboring states that can no longer send

their migrant workers to work in Ivorian cocoa plantations

Burma

over half of Burma's population consists of diverse ethnic

groups who have substantial numbers of kin in neighboring countries;

Thailand must deal with Karen and other ethnic refugees, asylum

seekers, and rebels, as well as illegal cross-border activities from

Burma; Thailand is studying the feasibility of jointly constructing

the Hatgyi Dam on the Salween River near the border with Burma;

citing environmental, cultural, and social concerns, China is

reconsidering construction of 13 dams on the Salween River but

energy-starved Burma with backing from Thailand remains intent on

building five hydro-electric dams downstream, despite identical

regional and international protests; India seeks cooperation from

Burma to keep Indian Nagaland separatists, such as the United

Liberation Front of Assam, from hiding in remote Burmese Uplands;

after 21 years, Bangladesh in January 2008 resumed talks with Burma

on delimiting a maritime boundary

Burundi

Burundi and Rwanda dispute sections of border on the

Akanyaru/Kanyaru and the Kagera/Nyabarongo rivers, which have

changed course since the 1960s, when the boundary was delimited;

cross-border conflicts among Tutsi, Hutu, other ethnic groups,

associated political rebels, armed gangs, and various government

forces persist in the Great Lakes region

Cambodia

Cambodia and Thailand dispute sections of boundary with

missing boundary markers and claims of Thai encroachments into

Cambodian territory; maritime boundary with Vietnam is hampered by

unresolved dispute over sovereignty of offshore islands; Thailand

accuses Cambodia of obstructing inclusion of Thai areas near Preah

Vihear temple ruins, awarded to Cambodia by ICJ decision in 1962, as

part of a planned UN World Heritage site

Cameroon

Joint Border Commission with Nigeria reviewed 2002 ICJ

ruling on the entire boundary and bilaterally resolved differences,

including June 2006 Greentree Agreement that immediately ceded

sovereignty of the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon with a full

phase-out of Nigerian control and patriation of residents in 2008;

Cameroon and Nigeria agree on maritime delimitation in March 2008;

sovereignty dispute between Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon over an

island at the mouth of the Ntem River; only Nigeria and Cameroon

have heeded the Lake Chad Commission's admonition to ratify the

delimitation treaty, which also includes the Chad-Niger and

Niger-Nigeria boundaries

Canada

managed maritime boundary disputes with the US at Dixon

Entrance, Beaufort Sea, Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Gulf of

Maine including the disputed Machias Seal Island and North Rock;

Canada, the US, and other countries dispute the status of the

Northwest Passage; US works closely with Canada to intensify

security measures for monitoring and controlling legal and illegal

movement of people, transport, and commodities across the

international border; sovereignty dispute with Denmark over Hans

Island in the Kennedy Channel between Ellesmere Island and

Greenland; commencing the collection of technical evidence for

submission to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf

in support of claims for continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles

from its declared baselines in the Arctic, as stipulated in Article

76, paragraph 8, of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the

Sea

Cape Verde

none

Cayman Islands

none

Central African Republic

periodic skirmishes over water and grazing

rights among related pastoral populations along the border with

southern Sudan persist

Chad

since 2003, Janjawid armed militia and the Sudanese military

have driven hundreds of thousands of Darfur residents into Chad;

Chad remains an important mediator in the Sudanese civil conflict,

reducing tensions with Sudan arising from cross-border banditry;

Chadian Aozou rebels reside in southern Libya; only Nigeria and

Cameroon have heeded the Lake Chad Commission's admonition to ratify

the delimitation treaty, which also includes the Chad-Niger and

Niger-Nigeria boundaries

Chile

Chile and Peru rebuff Bolivia's reinvigorated claim to restore

the Atacama corridor, ceded to Chile in 1884, but Chile has offered

instead unrestricted but not sovereign maritime access through Chile

to Bolivian gas and other commodities; Chile rejects Peru's

unilateral legislation to change its latitudinal maritime boundary

with Chile to an equidistance line with a southwestern axis favoring

Peru, in October 2007, Peru took its maritime complaint with Chile

to the ICJ; territorial claim in Antarctica (Chilean Antarctic

Territory) partially overlaps Argentine and British claims; the

joint boundary commission, established by Chile and Argentina in

2001, has yet to map and demarcate the delimited boundary in the

inhospitable Andean Southern Ice Field (Campo de Hielo Sur)

China

continuing talks and confidence-building measures work toward

reducing tensions over Kashmir that nonetheless remains militarized

with portions under the de facto administration of China (Aksai

Chin), India (Jammu and Kashmir), and Pakistan (Azad Kashmir and

Northern Areas); India does not recognize Pakistan's ceding historic

Kashmir lands to China in 1964; China and India continue their

security and foreign policy dialogue started in 2005 related to the

dispute over most of their rugged, militarized boundary, regional

nuclear proliferation, and other matters; China claims most of

India's Arunachal Pradesh to the base of the Himalayas; lacking any

treaty describing the boundary, Bhutan and China continue

negotiations to establish a common boundary alignment to resolve

territorial disputes due to cartographic discrepancies; Chinese maps

show an international boundary symbol off the coasts of the littoral

states of the South China Seas, where China has interrupted

Vietnamese hydrocarbon exploration; China asserts sovereignty over

Scarborough Reef along with the Philippines and Taiwan, and over the

Spratly Islands together with Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan,

Vietnam, and Brunei; the 2002 "Declaration on the Conduct of Parties

in the South China Sea" eased tensions in the Spratly's but is not

the legally binding "code of conduct" sought by some parties;

Vietnam and China continue to expand construction of facilities in

the Spratly's and in March 2005, the national oil companies of

China, the Philippines, and Vietnam signed a joint accord on marine

seismic activities in the Spratly Islands; China occupies some of

the Paracel Islands also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan; China and

Taiwan continue to reject both Japan's claims to the uninhabited

islands of Senkaku-shoto (Diaoyu Tai) and Japan's unilaterally

declared equidistance line in the East China Sea, the site of

intensive hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation; certain islands

in the Yalu and Tumen rivers are in dispute with North Korea; North

Korea and China seek to stem illegal migration to China by North

Koreans, fleeing privations and oppression, by building a fence

along portions of the border and imprisoning North Koreans deported

by China; China and Russia have demarcated the once disputed islands

at the Amur and Ussuri confluence and in the Argun River in

accordance with their 2004 Agreement; China and Tajikistan have

begun demarcating the revised boundary agreed to in the delimitation

of 2002; the decade-long demarcation of the China-Vietnam land

boundary was completed in 2009; citing environmental, cultural, and

social concerns, China has reconsidered construction of 13 dams on

the Salween River, but energy-starved Burma, with backing from

Thailand, remains intent on building five hydro-electric dams

downstream despite regional and international protests; Chinese and

Hong Kong authorities met in March 2008 to resolve ownership and use

of lands recovered in Shenzhen River channelization, including

96-hectare Lok Ma Chau Loop; Hong Kong developing plans to reduce

2,000 out of 2,800 hectares of its restricted Closed Area by 2010

Christmas Island

none

Clipperton Island

none

Cocos (Keeling) Islands

none

Colombia

in December 2007, ICJ allocates San Andres, Providencia,

and Santa Catalina islands to Colombia under 1928 Treaty but does

not rule on 82 degrees W meridian as maritime boundary with

Nicaragua; managed dispute with Venezuela over maritime boundary and

Venezuelan-administered Los Monjes Islands near the Gulf of

Venezuela; Colombian-organized illegal narcotics, guerrilla, and

paramilitary activities penetrate all neighboring borders and have

caused Colombian citizens to flee mostly into neighboring countries;

Colombia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Jamaica, and the US assert various

claims to Bajo Nuevo and Serranilla Bank

Comoros

claims French-administered Mayotte and challenges France's

and Madagascar's claims to Banc du Geyser, a drying reef in the

Mozambique Channel; in May 2008, African Union forces are called in

to assist the Comoros military recapture Anjouan Island from rebels

who seized it in 2001

Congo, Democratic Republic of the

heads of the Great Lakes states

and UN pledged in 2004 to abate tribal, rebel, and militia fighting

in the region, including northeast Congo, where the UN Organization

Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), organized

in 1999, maintains over 16,500 uniformed peacekeepers; members of

Uganda's Lords Resistance Army forces continue to seek refuge in

Congo's Garamba National Park as peace talks with the Uganda

government evolve; the location of the boundary in the broad Congo

River with the Republic of the Congo is indefinite except in the

Pool Malebo/Stanley Pool area; Uganda and DROC dispute Rukwanzi

island in Lake Albert and other areas on the Semliki River with

hydrocarbon potential; boundary commission continues discussions

over Congolese-administered triangle of land on the right bank of

the Lunkinda river claimed by Zambia near the DROC village of Pweto

Congo, Republic of the

the location of the boundary in the broad

Congo River with the Democratic Republic of the Congo is indefinite

except in the Pool Malebo/Stanley Pool area

Cook Islands

none

Coral Sea Islands

none

Costa Rica

the ICJ has given Costa Rica until January 2008 to reply

and Nicaragua until July 2008 to rejoin before rendering its

decision on the navigation, security, and commercial rights of Costa

Rican vessels on the Rio San Juan over which Nicaragua retains

sovereignty

Cote d'Ivoire

despite the presence of over 9,000 UN forces (UNOCI)

in Cote d'Ivoire since 2004, ethnic conflict still leaves displaced

hundreds of thousands of Ivorians in and out of the country as well

as driven out migrants from neighboring states who worked in Ivorian

cocoa plantations; the March 2007 peace deal between Ivorian rebels

and the government brought significant numbers of rebels out of

hiding in neighboring states

Croatia

dispute remains with Bosnia and Herzegovina over several

small sections of the boundary related to maritime access that

hinders ratification of the 1999 border agreement; the

Croatia-Slovenia land and maritime boundary agreement, which would

have ceded most of Pirin Bay and maritime access to Slovenia and

several villages to Croatia, remains unratified and in dispute;

Slovenia also protests Croatia's 2003 claim to an exclusive economic

zone in the Adriatic; as a European Union peripheral state, Slovenia

imposed a hard border Schengen regime with non-member Croatia in

December 2007

Cuba

US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay is leased to US and only mutual

agreement or US abandonment of the facility can terminate the lease

Cyprus

hostilities in 1974 divided the island into two de facto

autonomous entities, the internationally recognized Cypriot

Government and a Turkish-Cypriot community (north Cyprus); the

1,000-strong UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) has served in

Cyprus since 1964 and maintains the buffer zone between north and

south; on 1 May 2004, Cyprus entered the European Union still

divided, with the EU's body of legislation and standards (acquis

communitaire) suspended in the north; Turkey protests Cypriot

Government creating hydrocarbon blocks and maritime boundary with

Lebanon in March 2007

Czech Republic

while threats of international legal action never

materialized in 2007, 915,220 Austrians, with the support of the

popular Freedom Party, signed a petition in January 2008, demanding

that Austria block the Czech Republic's accession to the EU unless

Prague closes its controversial Soviet-style nuclear plant in

Temelin, bordering Austria

Denmark

Iceland, the UK, and Ireland dispute Denmark's claim that

the Faroe Islands' continental shelf extends beyond 200 nm; Faroese

continue to study proposals for full independence; sovereignty

dispute with Canada over Hans Island in the Kennedy Channel between

Ellesmere Island and Greenland

Djibouti

Djibouti maintains economic ties and border accords with

"Somaliland" leadership while maintaining some political ties to

various factions in Somalia; Kuwait is chief investor in the 2008

restoration and upgrade of the Ethiopian-Djibouti rail link; in

2008, Eritrean troops move across the border on Ras Doumera

peninsula and occupy Doumera Island with undefined sovereignty in

the Red Sea

Dominica

Dominica is the only Caribbean state to challenge

Venezuela's sovereignty claim over Aves Island and joins the other

island nations in challenging whether the feature sustains human

habitation, a criterion under the UN Convention on the Law of the

Sea (UNCLOS), which permits Venezuela to extend its Exclusive

Economic Zone (EEZ) and continental shelf claims over a large

portion of the eastern Caribbean Sea

Dominican Republic

Haitian migrants cross the porous border into the

Dominican Republic to find work; illegal migrants from the Dominican

Republic cross the Mona Passage each year to Puerto Rico to find

better work

Ecuador

organized illegal narcotics operations in Colombia penetrate

across Ecuador's shared border, which thousands of Colombians also

cross to escape the violence in their home country

Egypt

Sudan claims but Egypt de facto administers security and

economic development of Halaib region north of the 22nd parallel

boundary; Egypt no longer shows its administration of the Bir Tawil

trapezoid in Sudan on its maps; Gazan breaches in the security wall

with Egypt in January 2008 highlight difficulties in monitoring the

Sinai border; Saudi Arabia claims Egyptian-administered islands of

Tiran and Sanafir

El Salvador

International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on the

delimitation of "bolsones" (disputed areas) along the El

Salvador-Honduras boundary, in 1992, with final agreement by the

parties in 2006 after an Organization of American States (OAS)

survey and a further ICJ ruling in 2003; the 1992 ICJ ruling advised

a tripartite resolution to a maritime boundary in the Gulf of

Fonseca advocating Honduran access to the Pacific; El Salvador

continues to claim tiny Conejo Island, not identified in the ICJ

decision, off Honduras in the Gulf of Fonseca

Equatorial Guinea

in 2002, ICJ ruled on an equidistance settlement

of Cameroon-Equatorial Guinea-Nigeria maritime boundary in the Gulf

of Guinea, but a dispute between Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon over

an island at the mouth of the Ntem River and imprecisely defined

maritime coordinates in the ICJ decision delay final delimitation;

UN urges Equatorial Guinea and Gabon to resolve the sovereignty

dispute over Gabon-occupied Mbane and lesser islands and to create a

maritime boundary in the hydrocarbon-rich Corisco Bay

Eritrea

Eritrea and Ethiopia agreed to abide by 2002

Ethiopia-Eritrea Boundary Commission's (EEBC) delimitation decision

but, neither party responded to the revised line detailed in the

November 2006 EEBC Demarcation Statement; Sudan accuses Eritrea of

supporting eastern Sudanese rebel groups; in 2008 Eritrean troops

move across the border on Ras Doumera peninsula and occupy Doumera

Island with undefined sovereignty in the Red Sea

Estonia

Russia recalled its signature to the 1996 technical border

agreement with Estonia in 2005, rather than concede to Estonia's

appending prepared a unilateral declaration referencing Soviet

occupation and territorial losses; Russia demands better

accommodation of Russian-speaking population in Estonia; Estonian

citizen groups continue to press for realignment of the boundary

based on the 1920 Tartu Peace Treaty that would bring the now

divided ethnic Setu people and parts of the Narva region within

Estonia; as a member state that forms part of the EU's external

border, Estonia must implement the strict Schengen border rules with

Russia

Ethiopia

Eritrea and Ethiopia agreed to abide by the 2002

Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission's (EEBC) delimitation decision,

but neither party responded to the revised line detailed in the

November 2006 EEBC Demarcation Statement; the undemarcated former

British administrative line has little meaning as a political

separation to rival clans within Ethiopia's Ogaden and southern

Somalia's Oromo region; Ethiopian forces invaded southern Somalia

and routed Islamist Courts from Mogadishu in January 2007;

"Somaliland" secessionists provide port facilities in Berbera and

trade ties to landlocked Ethiopia; civil unrest in eastern Sudan has

hampered efforts to demarcate the porous boundary with Ethiopia

European Union

as a political union, the EU has no border disputes

with neighboring countries, but Estonia has no land boundary

agreements with Russia, Slovenia disputes its land and maritime

boundaries with Croatia, and Spain has territorial and maritime

disputes with Morocco and with the UK over Gibraltar; the EU has set

up a Schengen area - consisting of 22 EU member states that have

signed the convention implementing the Schengen agreements or

"acquis" (1985 and 1990) on the free movement of persons and the

harmonization of border controls in Europe; these agreements became

incorporated into EU law with the implementation of the 1997 Treaty

of Amsterdam on 1 May 1999; in addition, non-EU states Iceland and

Norway (as part of the Nordic Union) have been included in the

Schengen area since 1996 (full members in 2001), and Switzerland

since 2008 bringing the total current membership to 25; the UK

(since 2000) and Ireland (since 2002) take part in only some aspects

of the Schengen area, especially with respect to police and criminal

matters; nine of the 12 new member states that joined the EU since

2004 joined Schengen on 21 December 2007; of the three remaining EU

states, Cyprus is expected to join by 2009, while Romania and

Bulgaria continue to enhance their border security systems

Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)

Argentina, which claims the

islands in its constitution and briefly occupied them by force in

1982, agreed in 1995 to no longer seek settlement by force; UK

continues to reject Argentine requests for sovereignty talks

Faroe Islands

because anticipated offshore hydrocarbon resources

have not been realized, earlier Faroese proposals for full

independence have been deferred; Iceland, the UK, and Ireland

dispute Denmark's claim that the Faroe Islands' continental shelf

extends beyond 200 nm

Fiji

none

Finland

various groups in Finland advocate restoration of Karelia

and other areas ceded to the Soviet Union, but the Finnish

Government asserts no territorial demands