Pres­i­dent of Guyana, Dr Mo­hammed Ir­faan Ali, has wel­comed the re­cent rul­ing by the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice (ICJ) in favour of Guyana, and which strong­ly ad­vis­es Venezuela to “re­frain from tak­ing any ac­tion” that would in­volve the pos­si­ble an­nex­a­tion of Guyana’s Es­se­qui­bo Re­gion.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment on the mat­ter, Pres­i­dent Ali ob­served that the ICJ’s rul­ing is legal­ly bind­ing on Venezuela and must be com­plied with.  He al­so re­it­er­at­ed his coun­try’s com­mit­ment “to pur­su­ing a peace­ful, le­gal res­o­lu­tion to this dis­pute in the right and prop­er place—the ICJ.”

Venezuela re­cent­ly an­nounced its in­ten­tion to hold a na­tion­al ref­er­en­dum that would en­dorse its an­nex­a­tion of the area, prompt­ing Guyana to seek re­dress at the ICJ.

The fol­low­ing is the full text of the State­ment is­sued by the Pres­i­dent of Guyana, on the ICJ rul­ing:

" To­day, the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice (ICJ) is­sued an im­por­tant Or­der grant­i­ng the pro­vi­sion­al mea­sures against Venezuela that Guyana re­quest­ed in re­sponse to Venezuela’s an­nounce­ment that it would be hold­ing a ref­er­en­dum that would en­dorse, among oth­er il­le­gal mea­sures, Venezuela’s an­nex­a­tion of Guyana’s Es­se­qui­bo Re­gion.

The Or­der of the Court was unan­i­mous, with all of the sit­ting Judges vot­ing in favour of it.

The Or­der states:

‘Pend­ing a fi­nal de­ci­sion in the case, the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela shall re­frain from tak­ing any ac­tion which would mod­i­fy the sit­u­a­tion that cur­rent­ly pre­vails in the ter­ri­to­ry in dis­pute, where­by the Co­op­er­a­tive Re­pub­lic of Guyana ad­min­is­ters and ex­er­cis­es con­trol over that area.’

We wel­come this unan­i­mous rul­ing by the ICJ.

As the Court has made clear, Venezuela is pro­hib­it­ed from an­nex­ing or tres­pass­ing up­on Guyanese ter­ri­to­ry or tak­ing any oth­er ac­tions – re­gard­less of the out­come of its ref­er­en­dum on De­cem­ber 3 – that would al­ter the sta­tus quo in which Guyana ad­min­is­ters and con­trols the Es­se­qui­bo Re­gion, as an in­te­gral part of its sov­er­eign ter­ri­to­ry, un­der the Ar­bi­tral Award of 3 Oc­to­ber 1899.

To­day’s rul­ing is legal­ly bind­ing on Venezuela. Both the UN Char­ter and the Statute of the Court, to which Venezuela is a Par­ty, re­quire its strict com­pli­ance.

This is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for Venezuela to join Guyana in demon­strat­ing re­spect for in­ter­na­tion­al law and the prin­ci­ples that gov­ern peace­ful co­ex­is­tence.

Guyana re­mains stead­fast in its com­mit­ment to the in­ter­na­tion­al ju­di­cial process and the rule of law. It is ful­ly con­fi­dent that, when the ICJ is­sues its fi­nal Judg­ment on the mer­its of the case, it will con­clude that the Es­se­qui­bo is legal­ly and right­ful­ly Guyanese ter­ri­to­ry.

We be­lieve that jus­tice, not force, should be the ar­biter of in­ter­na­tion­al dis­putes.

To this end, we af­firm our ded­i­ca­tion to pur­su­ing a peace­ful, le­gal res­o­lu­tion to this dis­pute in the right and prop­er place—the ICJ—as au­tho­rized by the UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al in the ex­er­cise of his pow­ers un­der the Gene­va Agree­ment of 1966.

The sol­i­dar­i­ty of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty with Guyana has been in­valu­able. We ap­peal to our sis­ter coun­tries of CARI­COM and the broad­er in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue sup­port­ing the prin­ci­ples of jus­tice and in­ter­na­tion­al law in re­la­tion to the con­tro­ver­sy over Guyana’s bor­der with Venezuela.  Our col­lec­tive voice can serve as a bea­con for the re­spect of the Unit­ed Na­tions Char­ter, the rule of law and the peace­ful set­tle­ment of dis­putes.

As Guyana pre­pares to join the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, we are con­scious of the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that comes with this role - to en­cour­age and sup­port in­ter­na­tion­al peace and sta­bil­i­ty and the rule of law, and we en­cour­age all peace-lov­ing na­tions to in­sist on Venezue­lan re­spect for the Char­ter of the Unit­ed Na­tions and the UN’s high­est court.

We are re­solved to main­tain our re­gion as a Zone of Peace, and we in­vite all na­tions to join us in this no­ble pur­suit. " —De­cem­ber 1, 2023