The dispute arose because of the imprecise wording of the agreement concerning the northern boundary between the colonial powers of Germany and the United Kingdom which settled the geographic interests between German South-West Africa and the Bechuanaland Protectorate in the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty signed on July 1, 1890.

It is understood that under this arrangement Germany shall be granted free access from its protectorate to the Zambezi by means of a strip of land not less than twenty English miles [30 km] wide at any point.

Great Britain's sphere of influence is bounded to the west and northwest by the previously described line and includes Lake Ngami.

[citation needed] According to the text of the 1890 Treaty, Great Britain and Germany located the dividing line between their spheres of influence in the "main channel" of the Chobe River.

The Court found that while the Subia people of the Caprivi Strip (territory belonging to Namibia) did indeed use the island for many years, they did so intermittently, according to the seasons, and for exclusively agricultural purposes, without it being established that they occupied the island exercising functions of state authority there on behalf of the Zambezi authorities.