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The five-strong arbitration tribunal - chair Gilbert Guillame and members Vaughan Lowe, Bruno Simma, Jernej Sekolec and Budislav Vukas - will now withdraw to deliberate and a decision is expected within a year.

The final decision will demand a simple majority, which means that three out of five tribunal members must support it. The tribunal may also decide to visit the problematic segments of the border before making a decision.

The tribunal have said they would issue a summary of the countries' arguments after the oral hearing concludes; when this happens depends on the approval of the two countries involved, a representative of the Permanent Arbitration Court has told the STA.

Under the 2009 border arbitration treaty signed between Slovenia and Croatia, the oral hearing was conducted behind closed doors and statements for the press did not go into any detail. However, Slovenia's team was clearly upbeat after the initial presentations were delivered.

Simona Drenik, one of the country's agents at the court, said after Croatia started the first round of presentations that the neighbour's case went as expected, while Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec was very happy with Slovenia's case.

He said after presenting the country's position on the sea border last Friday that he could feel the Croatian team getting nervous because it did not expect Slovenia's case to be as good.