In 2018, Guyana, a former British colony, filed a lawsuit against Caracas at the International Court of Justice to resolve the territorial dispute. Photo: Composition LR/EFE/BBC
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) stated this Thursday that it was responsible for deciding the dispute Venezuela develops a Hague with Guyana for the 160,000 square kilometer area that is located west of the Essequibo River. It’s a blow to Caracas, which tried to dismiss the case as “inadmissible”.
The ICJ unanimously rejected the arguments of Venezuela, which put forward various reasons in its written and oral arguments to “request the court to clarify Guyana’s claims and declare them inadmissible” while Guyana had requested “the to dismiss preliminary objections” and to move from Caracas to the merits of the case.
The supreme judicial authority of the United Nations also rejected this Great Britain committed to participate in this case, against the consideration of Caracas, which London considered a necessary part of the validity of the 1899 Arbitration Court’s award, in the context of the territorial dispute that both countries are conducting for the region of Essequibo.
The government of Guyana, a former British colony, had asked the International Court of Justice to focus on the arbitral award’s validity in order to resolve this dispute.
Venezuela held that the ICJ is not authorized to hear Guyana’s position; but after the court decided so, it asked the Court of Justice to rule that it cannot hear the case because the UK was not a party to these proceedings.
He had also called on the United Kingdom to work for the “expropriation” of the Essequibo region, reiterating that the 1899 award that Guyana wants to validate was made when that country “didn’t even exist”. Republic” since it was a British colony at the time.
The dispute in The Hague
On November 17, Venezuela’s Executive Vice President Delcy Rodríguez traveled to The Hague to defend Caracas in its dispute with Guyana, warning that her country was the only “undeniable historical heir” of the areas in question.
“The origin of these rights is the historical, legal and political consequence of his succession to the title held by Spain and the birth of our republic. Venezuela respects and values the International Court of Justice as the main judicial body of the UN and continues to believe that this Court has no jurisdiction in this case, but we will prove Guyana’s request inadmissible,” he added.
Guyana’s agent Carl Greenidge regretted that Venezuela’s participation in this process “takes the form of late preliminary objections aimed at preventing or delaying the determination of Guyana’s claims.”
“It’s a long-standing dispute (…). It has cast a long and looming shadow over Guyana’s security and development throughout its existence as a sovereign state, a shadow rooted in Venezuela’s efforts to erase the long-standing land border between our countries and retake nearly three-quarters of Guyana’s land territory.” , he told Greenidge, who assured that the resolution of the conflict was “vital” for his country.
What are the origins of the territorial dispute between Venezuela and Guyana?
2018, Guyanaa former British colony, sued against it caracas in the ICJ to resolve the territorial dispute between the two states over the region of esquibo and last year he presented his arguments to uphold the 1899 award.
Last June, the Venezuelan government submitted its preliminary objections to the International Court of Justice to ensure that the lawsuit “is not allowed because it lacks essential elements of due process.”
Venezuela the Essequibo region claims about 70% of Guyana’s territory, including offshore oil reserves, and argues that the 1899 treaty is null and void because it contains what the Venezuelan government calls “159,500 square kilometers of Guyana’s Esequiba territory”. , “has influenced fraudulently”.
On February 17th Venezuela ratified the validity of the 57-year-old Geneva Convention as the only legal framework they recognize for resolving the 1899 arbitral award used by Guyana as an argument in the legal dispute as a “fraud” involving the expropriation of that territory the UK “relieved”.
The United Kingdom and Venezuela signed the Geneva Accords in 1966, shortly before Guyana’s independence, which initially laid the groundwork for settling the dispute, but negotiations dragged on for more than two decades without success.