On January 27, 2014, the International Court of Justice (Court) rendered its judgment in a dispute between Peru and Chile concerning the maritime boundary between them. The Court held that a partial maritime boundary already existed between the parties, and it proceeded to analyze both its nature and its extent on the basis of agreements between the parties, their practice, and other evidence. For the remainder of the boundary extending up to 200 nautical miles, the Court applied the rule of equitable delimitation found in Article 74 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

With a looming referendum on the secession of South Sudan, the drafters of the Abyei Arbitration Agreement were faced with a complex intra-state dispute and a limited time to resolve it. The parties to the dispute agreed on a procedural regime to govern the arbitration, combining both traditional and innovative provisions on procedural rules, the constitution of the tribunal, the schedule of pleadings, transparency, financing of the proceeding, and the role of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. This article examines the key provisions of the Abyei Arbitration Agreement and their implementation during the course of the arbitration, and evaluates the case's significance as procedural precedent for future intra- or inter-state arbitration. The article does not provide an analysis of the substantive findings of the tribunal.