Venezuela officially informs ICJ of non-participation in hearings

Guyana-Venezuela border controversy

…case to be called up on Tuesday

Venezuela has officially informed the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that it will not be participating in the oral proceedings when the case into the 1899 Arbitration Tribunal ruling on the Guyana-Venezuela Border, set to begin on Tuesday, June 30, with oral proceedings on the issue of jurisdiction, commences.

This was disclosed on Friday by the ICJ, which in announcing the date for hearings reported that “the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has informed the Court that it will not participate in the oral proceedings.”
The case, which will open at the Peace Palace in The Hague, will see Guyana making its arguments for the Court’s jurisdiction in the case concerning the Arbitral Award of October 3, 1899, from 14:00h to 17:00h.
Last Monday, Venezuela’s Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza shared a Venezuelan communique on his official social media account, saying “Venezuela informs that, in accordance with its historical position and in strict adherence to the 1966 Geneva Agreement, it will not attend the unusual and irregular hearing called for June 30 by the International Court of Justice.”
Since June 2018, the Bolivarian Republic had signalled its intent not to participate in the court proceedings.
During a meeting two years ago with the ICJ and a Venezuelan delegation, Venezuela’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Jorge Montserrat, informed ICJ President Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf that they would be boycotting the proceedings on the basis that the ICJ lacks jurisdiction to deal with the matter.
“The Venezuelan delegation has since informed the President of the Court, through a letter signed by the President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro Moros, of its sovereign decision not to participate in the procedure that Guyana intends to initiate, since the Court manifestly lacks jurisdiction over an action unilaterally proposed by the neighbouring country, which does not have the consent of Venezuela,” the Venezuelan Government had said in a statement.
The country’s position on the case was further cemented back in November when they failed to notify the Registrar of the Court of their participation by the allocated November 20 deadline.
The case was filed in March 2018, and seeks to have the world court confirm the legal validity and binding effect of the 1899 Arbitral Award regarding Guyana’s boundary with Venezuela.
The move to the world court had come on the heels of a decision by the then UN Secretary General to choose the ICJ as the next means of resolving the controversy that arose as a result of the Venezuelan contention that the Arbitral Award of 1899 about the frontier between British Guiana and Venezuela was null and void.
The Court also noted that “in view of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the hearing will take place in the Great Hall of Justice via videoconference. Some members of the Court will be physically present, the others will participate remotely, and the representatives of Guyana will address the Court by video link.”
The case was originally scheduled to begin on March 23 last; however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting restrictions, it was postponed to Tuesday.

Domestic troubles
At present, however, both Guyana and Venezuela are in the throes of domestic troubles of their own. In the case of Venezuela, its economy has collapsed under the Nicholás Maduro regime and sanctions imposed by the United States over Maduro’s undemocratic grip on power based on elections widely panned as lacking credibility.
The Venezuelan President has even been charged in the US for narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption. Meanwhile, Guyana is without an official declaration by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), three months after elections were held.
The past few months have been marked by court cases and attempts by certain officials to rig the elections in the favour of the APNU/AFC.

Guyana warned of sanctions
Officials in the US and other countries have already warned that Guyana could be sanctioned and isolated on the world stage if the legitimate results are not used to swear in a President, a situation that analysts have said could impact Guyana’s case at the ICJ.
The border controversy gained new life when oil giant ExxonMobil announced in 2015 that it had found oil offshore Guyana. Venezuela had inexplicably been against oil exploration in Guyana’s Stabroek Block, where multiple oil deposits were found by ExxonMobil, and had laid claim to the Essequibo region, which represents two-thirds of Guyana’s territory.
After some two years of mediation, the UN announced back in 2018 that it had sent the matter to the ICJ after careful analysis of the good offices process.