The International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Thursday rejected new objections from Caracas in a territorial dispute between Guyana and Venezuela over the 19th century Essequibo region, which has been reawakened by an oil discovery.
The UN’s highest court rejected Venezuela’s claim that the United Kingdom should be involved in the case, since London was Guyana’ s colonial power at the time of a disputed 1899 arbitration award.
The ICJ, which sits in The Hague, can now proceed with hearings on the merits of the case, a historic dispute between the South American neighbors. The court “rejects the preliminary objection raised by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela” by 14 judges to one, said the presiding judge of the court, Joan Donoghue.
Guyanese President Mohamed Irfaan Ali immediately welcomed the decision in a televised statement stressing that “this is the second time that this International Court has rejected the jurisdictional objections raised by Venezuela. “Guyana remains confident that its long-standing international border with Venezuela will be upheld by the Court,” he said, adding, “all member states of the United Nations, including Guyana and Venezuela, are bound by the UN Charter to abide by the Court’s judgments.”
Previously, he had reviewed the history of the border, saying that Venezuela “had changed its position to claim two-thirds of the Guyanese territory, west of the Essequibo River. Caracas insists on a historical claim to the disputed Essequibo territory, especially since U.S. giant Exxon Mobil found crude oil off the region’s coast in 2015. “Venezuela does not recognize the judicial mechanism as a way to resolve” the dispute with Guyana, reacted the Venezuelan power in a statement read to the press by Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, flanked by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Yvan Gil but also the Minister of Defense, General Vladimir Padrino.
Caracas will “exhaustively evaluate” the implications of the Court’s ruling and “adopt all measures at its disposal to defend its legitimate rights and territorial integrity,” according to the statement read by the Vice President. Guyana, a former British colony, claims that the current delimitation between the two countries is valid and is based on an 1899 Paris arbitration court ruling, a verdict never accepted by its Venezuelan neighbor and which the vice president called “fraudulent” on Thursday. In 2018, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had referred the matter to the ICJ, which is responsible for ruling on disputes between UN member states.
In 2020, the court said it had jurisdiction to rule on the dispute, but Venezuela challenged that decision. Although Caracas had previously refused to attend hearings, its representatives were present on Thursday before the judges.
