[5] Gyaman gained independence after the Anglo Ashanti war of 1874 until the state was absorbed into the Wassoulou Empire in 1885, who controlled Northern Ivory Coast.

In early 1984, the PNDC government complained that Ivory Coast was allowing Ghanaian dissidents to use its territory as a base from which to carry out acts of sabotage against Ghana.

Hopes for lasting improvement in Ghana's relations with its western neighbor, however, were quickly dashed following some ugly incidents in late 1993 and early 1994.

A twenty-member joint commission (ten from each country) was established to investigate the attacks, to recommend compensation for victims, and to find ways of avoiding similar incidents in the future.

[6] In 2010, the West African country Ivory Coast petitioned the United Nations to complete the demarcation of the Ivorian maritime boundary with Ghana.

The issue attracted considerable media attention, and some Ghanaian press sources claimed that the petition was an attempted oil grab by Ivory Coast.

Ghana instituted arbitral proceeding under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS) against Ivory Coast relating to a dispute regarding maritime boundary in 2014.

Further, Ghana took the view that the said equidistance-based single maritime boundary is mutually recognized, agreed, and applied by Ivory Coast and there was a ‘tacit agreement’ between parties where the latter was estopped from objecting.

The Special Chamber of the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) ruled in favor of Ghana in the three-year-long maritime dispute between the country and Côte d'Ivoire.

In a unanimous decision, the Tribunal found that contrary to the claims of the government in Abidjan, Ghana did not violate Côte d'Ivoire's maritime boundary in any way.

The Chamber also found that Ghana's oil and gas exploration activities in the disputed basin did not violate Côte d'Ivoire's sovereign rights.