Equatorial Guinea launched a case against France at the top United Nations court on Friday, the latest salvo in a long-running legal battle over a swanky Paris mansion confiscated by French authorities.
The west African nation asked the International Court of Justice to issue emergency orders against France over a building seized after the conviction of Vice President Teodorin Obiang for corruption.
It asked the court to order France not to sell the mansion, located on the upscale Avenue Foch near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, which the two countries have been squabbling over for several years.
French authorities seized the property, which boasts a cinema, hammam and marble and gold water taps, after convicting Obiang under a law targeting fortunes fraudulently amassed by foreign leaders.
In 2021, France’s top appeals court gave Obiang — the eldest son of the long-standing president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang — a three-year suspended sentence and 30 million euros in fines.
France also confiscated assets, including the luxurious Avenue Foch building with an estimated value well above 100 million euros.
In its latest complaint to the ICJ, dated July 3 but published by the court on Friday, Equatorial Guinea says French police entered the property last month and changed the locks on several of the doors.
Equatorial Guinea called on the court to order France to give it “immediate, complete and unhindered access” to the building.
– Embassy or residence? –
The mansion was also at the centre of an earlier case filed by Equatorial Guinea in 2016 at the ICJ, which rules on disputes between UN member states.
Equatorial Guinea argued the building served as the country’s embassy in France and that France had broken the Vienna Convention, which safeguards diplomats from interference by host countries.
But the UN court sided with France, which said the building was merely Teodorin Obiang’s residence and served no diplomatic purpose.
The ICJ upheld France’s objections that Equatorial Guinea had only tried to designate it as such after the investigation began into Obiang, and that the country already had an embassy in Paris.
A request for emergency orders — provisional measures, in the court’s jargon — takes precedence over all other court business.
The ICJ is currently wrestling with a busy caseload, including a high-profile case brought by South Africa against Israel alleging breaches of the UN Genocide Convention in Gaza.
It is also expected to deliver a key ruling on countries’ climate change obligations within months.
While the ICJ is the top United Nations court, whose rulings are binding, it has no way of enforcing its decisions.
For example, it has ordered Russia to stop its invasion of Ukraine — to no avail.
