One temple that I'm really keen to visit is Preah Vihear, technically located in the northernmost tip of Cambodia but only easily accessible from northeast Thailand. Since it re-opened to visitors in 1998, this mainly 11th century site has been a magnet for Thai nationals, keen to see a jewel of Khmer history that they feel was mistakenly awarded to Cambodia by an International Court ruling in 1962. Without doubt, the temple has the most remarkable setting of all the Khmer sites either within Cambodia. Perched high on a cliff edge of the Dongrek Escarpment overlooking Cambodia some 600 metres below, Preah Vihear was closed for decades because of its strategic location and the civil war raging in Cambodia, although it opened briefly between 1991 and 1993. Following the death of Pol Pot and the expulsion of the Khmer Rouge renegades in the area, it re-opened again in August 1998 and has remained accessible since.
Access to the site is across the Thai border before entering a series of causeways and steps stretching some 800 metres from the entrance up through five gopuras to the main sanctuary. Work began at the site in 813 under Jasovarman I and continued under a number of successive rulers. They each left their own mark amongst the collection of halls, libraries, naga balustrades, finely carved lintels and pediments and small barays. (unofficial source)
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By ICJ :
...This ancient sanctuary, partially in ruins, stood on a promontory of the Dangrek range of mountains which constituted the boundary between Cambodia and Thailand. The dispute had its fons et origo in the boundary settlements made in the period 1904-1908 between France, then conducting the foreign relations of Indo-China, and Siam. The application of the Treaty of 13 February 1904 was, in particular, involved. That Treaty established the general character of the frontier the exact boundary of which was to be delimited by a Franco-Siamese Mixed Commission.
In the eastern sector of the Dangrek range, in which Preah Vihear was situated, the frontier was to follow the watershed line. For the purpose of delimiting that frontier, it was agreed, at a meeting held on 2 December 1906, that the Mixed Commission should travel along the Dangrek range carrying out all the necessary reconnaissance, and that a survey officer of the French section of the Commission should survey the whole of the eastern part of the range. It had not been contested that the Presidents of the French and Siamese sections duly made this journey, in the course of which they visited the Temple of Preah Vihear. In January-February 1907, the President of the French section had reported to his Government that the frontier-line had been definitely established. It therefore seemed clear that a frontier had been surveyed and fixed, although there was no record of any decision and no reference to the Dangrek region in any minutes of the meetings of the Commission after 2 December 1906. Moreover, at the time when the Commission might have met for the purpose of winding up its work, attention was directed towards the conclusion of a further Franco-Siamese boundary treaty, the Treaty of 23 March 1907.
The final stage of the delimitation was the preparation of maps. The Siamese Government, which did not dispose of adequate technical means, had requested that French officers should map the frontier region. These maps were completed in the autumn of 1907 by a team of French officers, some of whom had been members of the Mixed Commission, and they were communicated to the Siamese Government in 1908. Amongst them was a map of the Dangrek range showing Preah Vihear on the Cambodian side. It was on that map that Cambodia had principally relied in support of her claim to sovereignty over the Temple. Thailand, on the other hand, had contended that the map, not being the work of the Mixed Commission, had no binding character; that the frontier indicated on it was not the true watershed line and that the true watershed line would place the Temple in Thailand, that the map had never been accepted by Thailand or, alternatively, that if Thailand had accepted it she had done so only because of a mistaken belief that the frontier indicated corresponded with the watershed line.
That map was never formally approved by the Mixed Commission, which had ceased to function some months before its production. While there could be no reasonable doubt that it was based on the work of the surveying officers in the Dangrek sector, the Court nevertheless concluded that, in its inception, it had no binding character. It was clear from the record, however, that the maps were communicated to the Siamese Government as purporting to represent the outcome of the work of delimitation; since there was no reaction on the part of the Siamese authorities, either then or for many years, they must be held to have acquiesced. The maps were moreover communicated to the Siamese members of the Mixed Commission, who said nothing. to the Siamese Minister of the Interior, Prince Damrong, who thanked the French Minister in Bangkok for them, and to the Siamese provincial governors, some of whom knew of Preah Vihear. If the Siamese authorities accepted the Annex I map without investigation, they could not now plead any error vitiating the reality of their consent.
The Siamese Government and later the Thai Government had raised no query about the Annex I map prior to its negotiations with Cambodia in Bangkok in 1958. But in 1934-1935 a survey had established a divergence between the map line and the true line of the watershed, and other maps had been produced showing the Temple as being in Thailand: Thailand had nevertheless continued also to use and indeed to publish maps showing Preah Vihear as lying in Cambodia. Moreover, in the course of the negotiations for the 1925 and 1937 Franco-Siamese Treaties, which confirmed the existing frontiers, and in 1947 in Washington before the Franco-Siamese Conciliation Commission, it would have been natural for Thailand to raise the matter: she did not do so. The natural inference was that she had accepted the frontier at Preah Vihear as it was drawn on the map, irrespective of its correspondence with the watershed line. Thailand had stated that having been, at all material times, in possession of Preah Vihear, she had had no need to raise the matter; she had indeed instanced the acts of her administrative authorities on the ground as evidence that she had never accepted the Annex I line at Preah Vihear. But the Court found it difficult to regard such local acts as negativing the consistent attitude of the central authorities. Moreover, when in 1930 Prince Damrong, on a visit to the Temple, was officially received there by the French Resident for the adjoining Cambodian province, Siam failed to react.
From these facts, the International Court of Justice concluded that Thailand had accepted the Annex I map. Even if there were any doubt in this connection, Thailand was not precluded from asserting that she had not accepted it since France and Cambodia had relied upon her acceptance and she had for fifty years enjoyed such benefits as the Treaty of 1904 has conferred on her. Furthermore, the acceptance of the Annex I map caused it to enter the treaty settlement; the Parties had at that time adopted an interpretation of that settlement which caused the map line to prevail over the provisions of the Treaty and, as there was no reason to think that the Parties had attached any special importance to the line of the watershed as such, as compared with the overriding importance of a final regulation of their own frontiers, the Court considered that the interpretation to be given now would be the same.
The Court therefore felt bound to pronounce in favour of the frontier indicated on the Annex I map in the disputed area and it became unnecessary to consider whether the line as mapped did in fact correspond to the true watershed line.
For these reasons, the ICJ upheld the submissions of Cambodia concerning sovereignty over Preah Vihear.
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