ICJ to hear Guyana’s case to block Venezuela’s Referendum on Nov 14

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will be holding a special sitting in two weeks to hear Guyana’s Request regarding Venezuela’s planned referendum that seeks to annex the Essequibo region and integrate it into the Spanish-speaking nation’s territory.
In a statement on Friday, the Netherlands-based Court said it will hold public hearings in the case concerning the Arbitral Award of October 3, 1899 (Guyana v Venezuela) on Tuesday November 14, 2023, at the Peace Palace in The Hague.
According to the ICJ, the hearings will be devoted to the Request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by Guyana on October 30, 2023.
In its Request, Guyana states that “[o]n 23 October 2023, the Government of Venezuela, through its National Electoral Council, published a list of five questions that it plans to put before the Venezuelan people in a . . . ‘Consultative Referendum’ on 3 December 2023”. According to the Applicant, the purpose of this referendum is “to obtain responses that would support Venezuela’s decision to abandon [the current proceedings before the Court], and to resort instead to unilateral measures to ‘resolve’ the controversy with Guyana by formally annexing and integrating into Venezuela all of the territory at issue in these proceedings, which comprises more than two-thirds of Guyana.”
During the November 14 hearing, Guyana will present oral arguments from 10:00h to 11:30h while Venezuela will make its submissions from 15:00h to 16:30h.
Last month, the Venezuelan National Electoral Council published a list of five questions that it plans to put before the Venezuelan people in a referendum set for December 3, 2023. The referendum will seek the Venezuelan people’s approval to, among other things, annex Essequibo and create a Venezuelan state. This particular question (#5) also seeks the citizen’s approval for Venezuela to grant citizenship and identity cards to residents of Essequibo.
Tuesday last, it was revealed that the Guyana Government has sought the World Court’s intervention to prevent Venezuela from taking action through its planned referendum to annex Guyana’s Essequibo region.
One of the questions from the referendum that Guyana is seeking an order against is the very first one, which asks the Venezuelan people to reject the boundary between the two countries that was set in the 1899 Arbitral Award – following a process of arbitration.
Guyana is also seeking the Court’s intervention against question three, which asks the Venezuelan people not to recognise the ICJ’s jurisdiction, even though the Court had thrown out Venezuela’s previous attempt to get the Court not to accept jurisdiction over the case.
Finally, the Court’s intervention is being sought to prevent question five.
According to the ICJ, Guyana is also seeking an order from the Court that “Venezuela shall not take any actions that are intended to prepare or allow the exercise of sovereignty or de facto control over any territory that was awarded to British Guiana in the 1899 Arbitral Award” and further that “Venezuela shall refrain from any action which might aggravate or extend the dispute before the Court or make it more difficult to resolve.”
The Guyana Government on Tuesday explained that the ICJ’s protection against Venezuela’s “sinister plan for seizing Guyanese territory” is urgent. It added that because of the urgency of the matter, Guyana has asked the Court to schedule oral hearings on its request at the earliest possible date in advance of December 3.
In the interim, an extraordinary sitting of the National Assembly in Georgetown is set for Monday, November 6, 2023, where Members of Parliament from both the Government and Opposition are expected to denounce the recent actions by the Government in Caracas.
Over the past few weeks, Guyana has been informing regional and international partners of Venezuela’s planned referendum, which has been criticised by the United States, the Caribbean Community (Caricom), and the Organisation of American States (OAS) as well as several other nations in the Region including Brazil. There is a consensus that Venezuela’s referendum threatens the peace, security, and stability of the Region.
Former Venezuelan Ambassador to Guyana, Sadio Garavini di Turno, in an opinion piece published on Thursday, bashed the Nicolás Maduro Government over its planned referendum, saying the exercise is not only useless but is a distraction from the ongoing socioeconomic crisis in the Spanish-speaking nation.
Turno, an advisor to the current Opposition in Venezuela, urged the Caracas Government to prepare itself to defend the country’s case before the ICJ.
After years of failed good offices process, Guyana approached the World Court in March 2018 seeking a final and binding judgement to reinforce that the 1899 Arbitral Award remains valid and binding on all parties as well as legal affirmation that Guyana’s Essequibo region, which contains much of the country’s natural resources, belongs to Guyana and not Venezuela.
The Spanish-speaking neighbour has laid claim to more than two-thirds of Guyana’s landmass in the Essequibo region and a portion of its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in which nearly 11 billion barrels of oil have been discovered largely by United States oil giant, ExxonMobil.
The Guyana Government has already declared its commitment to resolve this longstanding border controversy with Venezuela through the legal process at the World Court. (G-8)