Georgetown: A high-level legal team representing Guyana Tuesday made out a case on why the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has the powers to hear and determine the case brought before it to put an end to the controversy.
The hearing was the first the court was having online since it was closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Guyana’s Co-Agent and Head of the Legal Team in Guyana’s border case against Venezuela, Sir Shridath Ramphal opened Guyana’s arguments before the ICJ Tuesday.
Venezuela is contending that it has claim to 70 percent of Guyana’s territory.
In his opening remarks, Guyana’s first Attorney General Sir Shridath told the Judges via video conference that “it is unfortunate that Venezuela has chosen not to participate in these hearings. Undoubtedly, it would have been more helpful to the Court for both parties to appear to fully present their arguments in the first round and respond to each other in second. But at least the Court has not been left to speculate as to what Venezuela might have said had it appeared in this Great Hall of Justice.”
He said Guyana’s case on the Court having jurisdiction is based on the plain text of the 1966 Geneva Agreement by which the parties consented to accept the decision of the UN Secretary-General on the means of settlement of their dispute over the validity of the 1899 Arbitral Award.
However, after the last push to see if talks could bear fruit between the two countries failed, the United Nations Secretary Antonio Guterres on January 30, 2018, announced that he was referring the matter to the International Court for final and full settlement.
But Venezuela contends that the Secretary-General was not correct in taking the decision, saying that it wanted talks to continue. But Guyana, exhausted by decades of talks that produced no results, moved to the Court to settle the controversy.
Venezuela has argued that the court has no jurisdiction and did not participate in the oral hearings Tuesday.
Sir Shridath noted that the move to the International Court of Justice is rooted in Venezuela’s repudiation of the award six decades after it was handed down at a time that seemed propitious to it – the eve of Guyana’s independence.
Sir Shirdath argued that the 1899 award was the very fulfilment of Venezuela’s early wish that the border should not be left to negotiation by the imperialist power but should be determined by international arbitration. In this, Venezuela was supported by the United States; Washington threatened to go to war with Britain if the matter was not settled.
Britain eventually agreed and signed the so-called Treaty of Washington in 1897. Venezuela would have the arbitration it demanded.
That Treaty of Washington, Sir Shridath noted, left nothing to chance.
“The parties agreed specifically to consider the result of the arbitration as ‘a full, perfect, and final settlement’ of all the questions referred to the arbitrators.”
Both Britain and Venezuela upheld the agreement – until 1962 when the Government of Venezuela formally denounced the arbitral award of 1899 for the first time and reasserted the original pre-award claim which amounted to 70% of Guyana’s territory.
From the time that contention was first made, it was vigorously rejected, Sir Shridath noted.
Between 1962 and 1965, the parties engaged one another in a series of talks in which each tried to convince each other of the correctness of their position with no progress towards a resolution.
These talks set the stage for a final round of meetings in Geneva in February 1966.
On the eve of independence, Guyana participated in that conference and Sir Shridath did so personally, as the country’s Attorney General.
Article IV (2) of that agreement provided that where other means to resolve Venezuela’s claim fails, the Secretary-General of the United Nations shall choose another of the means of Article 33 of the Charter of the UN.
In Geneva, it was Venezuela that affirmed that procedure, Sir Shridath noted.
And so, he told the Court that the hearing is really about the Court’s jurisdiction to consider claims in Guyana’s application that the arbitral award continues to be valid and binding.
He said Guyana’s case is based on the plain text of the 1966 agreement by which the parties expressly consented to accept the decision of the UN Secretary-General on the means of settling the controversy over the validity of the 1899 arbitral award and that the matter shall be settled by the Court as the means chosen by the UN Secretary-General.
Once the Court agrees with Guyana and establishes that it has jurisdiction, it will proceed to hear the actual case.
Guyana is seeking to obtain a final and binding judgment from the Court that the 1899 Arbitral Award, which established the location of the land boundary between then-British Guiana and Venezuela, remains valid and binding, and that Guyana’s Essequibo region belongs to Guyana, and not Venezuela.
Venezuela further escalated tensions in 2018 when it seized a ship exploring for oil in coastal waters claimed by both countries.
A ruling on jurisdiction is expected in the coming months.
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