The deliberations of lawyers in the Netherlands have come to have a huge bearing on the future of one of Africa’s least stable nations. First, the International Criminal Court indicted Sudan’s head of state, Omar al-Bashir, for war crimes. Celebrated by human rights activists as a victory for justice, this decision has complicated the quest for peace in the province of Darfur – at least short term.

The same is happily not the case for the latest ruling to emerge from The Hague. The Permanent Court of Arbitration has come up with a compromise position which could help avert a new war. Its ruling this week divides up the oil-rich region of Abyei, giving control of significant oil reserves to the Khartoum government in the north. But it still places large fertile areas and some oil within a province that will have the choice of joining the semi-autonomous south.