botswana/namibia - Cour international de Justice

evidences the operation of erosive processes. The use of the southern channel by
hippopotamus further supports its tranquil backwater character.
321. Taking into account all the matters set out in this Chapter, the Court is respectfully
requested to reject the case put forward by Namibia on the basis of Professor Alexander's
Report as irrelevant, lacking scientific foundation and contrary to the observable facts and
official surveys. Botswana requests the Court to rule in its favour that the main channel is the
northern channel and submits that the two Opinions of Professor Sefe and the
Sedimentological Report provide incontrovertible scientific evidence in support of that ruling.
CHAPTER 6
The Scientific Evidence Presented on Behalf of Botswana
(A) Botswana's case is based on the observable facts and the conclusions of official
surveys
322. Botswana's case is that the northern and western channel of the River Chobe in the
vicinity of Kasikili/Sedudu Island is the main channel and hence the northern channel is the
channel in the centre of which the boundary is to be drawn.
323. That case is supported by the facts on the ground. Every official, surveyor or hydrologist
prior to Professor Alexander has on a consideration of the question and, on inspection,
pronounced that the northern channel is the main channel. Captain H. V. Eason did so in his
survey of 1912, Trollope and Redman in their Joint Report of January 1948 were of that view,
as was the Surveyor-General of Bechuanaland in his Opinion of 18 October, 1965, and so
concluded the Joint Survey Report of 1985. In the light of such unanimity of view, reference
to scientific experts would seem supererogatory and unnecessary. Examination of the
remarkable series of aerial photographs beginning in 1925 to the present day (Attachment to
the Botswana Counter-Memorial, Professor Sefe's Second Opinion, Appendix 2 in Vol. II,
and see paragraphs 390 to 441 below) supports the same conclusion, namely that the northern
channel manifests itself, consistently over the period of seventy years, as the broader and
deeper channel, without the sinuosities of the southern channel, and hence is the main
channel. The satellite imageries taken in June 1975, March 1995 and June 1996, provide
further evidence in support, (paragraphs 442 to 456 below and see Satellite imagery opposite
page 99 of this Counter-Memorial, and in the Attachment). Such of the maps as accurately
portray the topography of the Island and its channels also demonstrate that the northern
channel is possessed of the characteristics required for the main channel.
(B) Scientific evidence is supererogatory
324. When the facts on the ground and all observers of those facts speak with such unanimity,
recourse to scientific evidence seems wholly superfluous, and contrary to common sense.
Namibia, in an attempt to divert the Court's attention from the facts and the strength of
Botswana's case, produces Professor Alexander as a scientific expert and adopts his
idiosyncratic definition of the main channel. It is to rebut these unscientific assertions and his