JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Guyana welcomes ruling of ICJ on border dispute with Venezuela

by

685 days ago
20230406

Guyana Thurs­day wel­comed the rul­ing of the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice (ICJ) in the on­go­ing bor­der dis­pute with Venezuela with both the gov­ern­ment and the op­po­si­tion say­ing they re­main con­fi­dent that the Hague-based court will con­firm the coun­try’s long­stand­ing in­ter­na­tion­al bound­ary dis­pute with its South Amer­i­can neigh­bour.

The ICJ by a vote of 14 to one re­ject­ed the pre­lim­i­nary ob­jec­tion by Venezuela to Guyana’s ap­pli­ca­tion for the up­hold­ing of the va­lid­i­ty of the 1899 Ar­bi­tral Award set­tling the bound­aries be­tween the two coun­tries.

The de­ci­sion read by Judge Joan E. Donoghue, Pres­i­dent of the Court, means that the court now pro­ceed to ad­dress the sub­stan­tive ap­pli­ca­tion by George­town re­gard­ing the va­lid­i­ty of the award.

The ICJ re­ject­ed Venezuela’s ar­gu­ment that the Unit­ed King­dom as Guyana’s colo­nial pow­er should have been a par­ty to the pro­ceed­ings.

“The court con­cludes that the Gene­va agree­ment spec­i­fies par­tic­u­lar roles for Guyana and Venezuela, and that its pro­vi­sions in­clud­ing Ar­ti­cle eight, do not pro­vide a role for the Unit­ed King­dom in choos­ing or in par­tic­i­pat­ing in the means of set­tle­ment of the dis­pute. pur­suant to Ar­ti­cle four,” the ICJ ruled.

“The Court con­cludes that, by virtue of be­ing a par­ty to the Gene­va Agree­ment, the Unit­ed King­dom ac­cept­ed that the dis­pute be­tween Guyana and Venezuela could be set­tled by one of the means set out in Ar­ti­cle 33 of the Char­ter of the Unit­ed Na­tions, and that it would have no role in that pro­ce­dure. Un­der these cir­cum­stances, the Court con­sid­ers that the Mon­e­tary Gold prin­ci­ple does not come in­to play in this case.

“It fol­lows that even if the Court, in its Judg­ment on the mer­its, were called to pro­nounce on cer­tain con­duct at­trib­ut­able to the Unit­ed King­dom, which can­not be de­ter­mined at present, this would not pre­clude the Court from ex­er­cis­ing its ju­ris­dic­tion, which is based on the ap­pli­ca­tion of the Gene­va Agree­ment. The pre­lim­i­nary ob­jec­tion raised by Venezuela must there­fore be re­ject­ed,” it added.

Last No­vem­ber, Venezuela said the ICJ could not hear the case and that the 1899 Ar­bi­tral Award is a full, fi­nal and per­fect set­tle­ment of the land bound­ary be­tween the two coun­tries be­cause Britain is not a par­ty to the pro­ceed­ings.

“We sub­mit that this court would not be in a po­si­tion to re­solve Guyana’s ap­pli­ca­tion be­cause the Unit­ed King­dom, an in­dis­pens­able par­ty to set­tle such a mat­ter of the dis­pute re­quest­ed by Guyana is not par­tic­i­pat­ing,” she told the judges.

In a state­ment, Pres­i­dent Dr. Ir­faan Ali said the rul­ing by the ICJ means that it will “now pro­ceed to de­cide the (con­tro­ver­sy) be­tween the two States on the mer­its, and ul­ti­mate­ly is­sue a fi­nal and bind­ing de­ter­mi­na­tion on the va­lid­i­ty of the 1899 Ar­bi­tral Award that fixed the land bound­ary be­tween Venezuela and then-British Guiana”.

He said Venezuela and the Unit­ed King­dom recog­nised the va­lid­i­ty of that Ar­bi­tral Award and the re­sult­ing in­ter­na­tion­al bound­ary for more than 60 years.

“Up­on its in­de­pen­dence in 1966, Guyana al­so recog­nised the Award and the bound­ary, but Venezuela had changed its po­si­tion and be­gun claim­ing more than two-thirds of Guyana’s ter­ri­to­ry west of the Es­se­qui­bo Riv­er.

Ali said that this is the sec­ond time the In­ter­na­tion­al Court has re­ject­ed ju­ris­dic­tion­al ob­jec­tions raised by Venezuela, not­ing that it had done so in 2020 and 2022.

“To­day’s rul­ing dis­pos­es of that ob­jec­tion, and will re­quire Venezuela to sub­mit its writ­ten plead­ings on the mer­its of the case – that is, on the va­lid­i­ty of the Ar­bi­tral Award and the in­ter­na­tion­al bound­ary that it es­tab­lished,” he said, adding “Guyana re­mains con­fi­dent that its long­stand­ing in­ter­na­tion­al bound­ary with Venezuela will be con­firmed by the Court.

“Guyana has al­ways been ful­ly com­mit­ted to the peace­ful res­o­lu­tion of the dis­pute with its neigh­bour and sis­ter Re­pub­lic in ac­cor­dance with in­ter­na­tion­al law. That is why, af­ter at­tempt­ing un­suc­cess­ful­ly to achieve a diplo­mat­ic set­tle­ment through talks me­di­at­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al over more than two decades, Guyana brought the mat­ter to the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice for a fi­nal and bind­ing de­ter­mi­na­tion.

“All Mem­ber States of the Unit­ed Na­tions, in­clud­ing Guyana and Venezuela, are ob­lig­at­ed un­der the Unit­ed Na­tions Char­ter to com­ply with the Court’s bind­ing judg­ments,” Ali added.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Aubrey Nor­ton told a news con­fer­ence of the ef­forts made by the for­mer gov­ern­ment to en­sure that Guyana’s bor­ders were not tak­en over by Venezuela.

“We are unan­i­mous in our view that Es­se­qui­bo be­longs to the peo­ple of Guyana, we are unan­i­mous in our views that the Court (ICJ) has ju­ris­dic­tion and we will con­tin­ue to sup­port the gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Guyana on this very crit­i­cal is­sue,” he told re­porters.

In a state­ment is­sued op­po­si­tion leg­is­la­tor and spokesper­son on For­eign Af­fairs, Aman­za Wal­ton- De­sir, said the coali­tion A Part­ner­ship for Na­tion­al Uni­ty and the Al­liance For Cange (AP­NU+AFC) wel­comed the rul­ing, adding “with the Court’s re­jec­tion of Venezuela’s pre­lim­i­nary ob­jec­tions, the way has now been cleared for the ICJ to ad­ju­di­cate on the mer­its of the case, in pur­suit of a fi­nal and bind­ing judg­ment on the mat­ter”.

In its rul­ing, the ICJ said that based on the Ar­ti­cles of the Gene­va Con­ven­tion of Feb­ru­ary 17, 1966, it was clear that the two par­ties to the set­tle­ment of the con­tro­ver­sy over the ar­bi­tral award were British Guiana and Venezuela.

It al­so re­ject­ed an ar­gu­ment by Cara­cas that the prin­ci­ple of Mon­e­tary Gold where a third par­ty is ab­sent from the pro­ceed­ings bans the tri­bunal from act­ing does not ap­ply. There­fore the then UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Ban Ki-moon was able to op­er­ate un­der Ar­ti­cle 33 of the UN Char­ter to re­fer the con­tro­ver­sy to the ICJ as re­quest­ed by Guyana.

In March 2018, Guyana filed its ap­pli­ca­tion with the ICJ to con­firm the va­lid­i­ty and bind­ing ef­fect of the Ar­bi­tral Award of 1899 on the bound­ary be­tween the two coun­tries and the sub­se­quent 1905 agree­ment, fol­low­ing the de­ci­sion by the UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­to­nio Guter­res to choose the ICJ as the next means of re­solv­ing the con­tro­ver­sy which stems from Venezuela’s con­tention that the award was null and void.

In its ap­pli­ca­tion of March 29, 2018, Guyana re­quest­ed that the Court ad­judge and de­clare that the “1899 Award is valid and bind­ing up­on Guyana and Venezuela, and the bound­ary es­tab­lished by that Award and the 1905 Agree­ment is valid and bind­ing up­on Guyana and Venezuela”.

It al­so want­ed the ICJ to rule that “Guyana en­joys full sov­er­eign­ty over the ter­ri­to­ry be­tween the Es­se­qui­bo Riv­er and the bound­ary es­tab­lished by the 1899 Award and the 1905 Agree­ment, and Venezuela en­joys full sov­er­eign­ty over the ter­ri­to­ry west of that bound­ary; Guyana and Venezuela are un­der an oblig­a­tion to ful­ly re­spect each oth­er’s sov­er­eign­ty and ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty in ac­cor­dance with the bound­ary es­tab­lished by the 1899 Award and the 1905 Agree­ment”.

In ad­di­tion, George­town want­ed Venezuela to “im­me­di­ate­ly with­draw from and cease its oc­cu­pa­tion of the east­ern half of the Is­land of Ankoko, and each and every oth­er ter­ri­to­ry which is rec­og­nized as Guyana’s sov­er­eign ter­ri­to­ry in ac­cor­dance with the 1899 Award and 1905 Agree­ment;

”Venezuela shall re­frain from threat­en­ing or us­ing force against any per­son and/or com­pa­ny li­censed by Guyana or en­gage in eco­nom­ic or com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty in Guyanese ter­ri­to­ry as de­ter­mined by the 1899 Award and 1905 Agree­ment, or in any mar­itime ar­eas ap­pur­tenant to such ter­ri­to­ry over which Guyana has sov­er­eign­ty or ex­er­cis­es sov­er­eign rights, and shall not in­ter­fere with any Guyanese or Guyanese-au­tho­rised ac­tiv­i­ties in those ar­eas;

”Venezuela is in­ter­na­tion­al­ly re­spon­si­ble for vi­o­la­tions of Guyana’s sov­er­eign­ty and sov­er­eign rights, and for all in­juries suf­fered by Guyana as a con­se­quence.”

The de­ci­sion to go to the ICJ by Guyana came af­ter years of stale­mate with Venezuela first in­di­cat­ing that it would not be par­tic­i­pat­ing in the process and that its par­tic­i­pa­tion would be “as a cour­tesy, not as a par­ty in this pro­ce­dure.”

How­ev­er, on June 7 last year, Cara­cas joined the pro­ceed­ings when it raised pre­lim­i­nary ob­jec­tions to the ad­mis­si­bil­i­ty of the case be­fore the Court.

CMC/gt/ir/2023

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana, Apr 6, CMC

GuyanaVenezuelaBordersInstagram


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored