Neither Facts nor Law: Epistemic Antirealism and the International Court of Justice's Ruling on Bakassi Peninsula

This research interrogates the epistemic antirealist presupposition on law, against the background of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) judgement on the Bakassi peninsula dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon. The paper evaluates the implication of ICJ’s judgement on the lives and lived experiences of Bakassians, as against the wishes of either Nigeria and Cameroon, and by extension the epistemic model which predetermined the trajectory of ICJ’s judgement. In evaluating the judgement, this paper argues within the framework of three predetermining grounds, which are; (1) the question on the aim of law, (2) Antirealist rejection of traditional historical ties and emplacement of a constructivist interpretation of law, and (3) the question of individual agency and justice. The centrepiece of these interrogations underpins a singular basic idea that implicates epistemic antirealism as seeking to create an alternate reality for society through the concept of law, whether or not such reality actually conforms to what is obtainable within the epistemic framework of society’s existing social sphere. Thus this research argues that the antirealist model of thinking about law, creates not only a problem for individual subjects of law, and by extension a chaotic framework for social reality, but also creates a problem for the very concept of law in itself.