- Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodriguez arrived in the Netherlands on Sunday ahead of a final hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on a decades-long dispute between her country and Guyana over the resource-rich Essequibo region, according to a US daily.
- Rodriguez said Venezuela had “demonstrated at every historical stage what our territory has meant since we were born as a Republic.” The final court hearing, with Rodriguez’s appearance, will take place on Monday.
The UN court in The Hague is reviewing competing claims to the nearly 62,000-square-mile territory, which is rich in gold, diamonds, timber and offshore oil reserves. Oil discoveries made by Exxon Mobile in 2015 have only drawn more strategic focus.
- Venezuela has considered Essequibo its own since the Spanish colonial period, when the jungle region fell within its boundaries. But an 1899 decision by arbitrators from Britain, Russia and the United States drew the border along the Essequibo River largely in favor of Guyana.
- The ICJ, based in The Hague, in the Netherlands, is the principal judicial body of the United Nations, with one of its primary roles being the resolution of legal disputes between states.
- Guyana asked the ICJ in 2018 to uphold an 1899 arbitration ruling that set the border, and not the 1966 agreement — is the one drawing the border lines.
- In 1966, Britain and Venezuela reached an agreement – known as the Geneva Agreement – to establish a commission made up of representatives of Guyana, which became independent from Britain that same year, and Venezuela to revisit the territorial dispute.
- But even though almost six decades have passed since, there still has been no resolution.
- The dispute flared up in 2015, after US giant ExxonMobil discovered oil in Essequibo’s offshore waters.
- Venezuela has also maintained that its participation in the hearings does not mean it recognizes the ICJ’s jurisdiction. A final ruling from the court is expected to take months to issue a final and legally binding ruling in the case.
- At the opening of the hearings, Guyanese Foreign Minister Hugh Hilton Todd told the international judges that the dispute “has been a blight on our existence as a sovereign state from the beginning” and indicated that 70% of Guyana’s territory is at stake.
- Guyana has administered the area since independence in 1966. The Essequibo region covers roughly two-thirds of Guyana. It is home to 125,000 of Guyana’s 800,000 citizens.
