As Guyana awaits a decision from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Venezuela’s upcoming referendum about the Essequibo region, Attorney General Anil Nandlall SC has assured Guyanese that the court can enforce its rulings.
The Attorney General addressed the ongoing controversy and Venezuela’s planned referendum during his “Issues in the News” Facebook live on Tuesday night.
During his engagement, he acknowledged concerns that Venezuela may not adhere to a ruling of the Court that is favourable to Guyana but emphasised that the ICJ, also called the World Court, is capable of enforcing its decisions.
“It is that coercive power that keeps the majesty of the cour intact.
“It is the capacity to enforce its orders that demands veneration and respect from any court of law,” Nandlall explained.
He later added: “I cannot imagine that the ICJ, which is the pinnacle and the summit of the international legal structure, will be a court that is unable to enforce its own orders.”
Nandlall also said the enforcement arm of the World Court is the United Nations Security Council- the body on which Guyana will take a seat on from January.
Last week, Guyana argued before the Court that the December 3 referendum is intended to be used as a trigger for Venezuela to seize Guyana’s territory by military force.
At the Hague, Nandlall explained that Venezuela has a right to hold any referendum it chooses, but its referendum cannot seek to dictate action to violate another country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Guyana argues that because the referendum has direct bearing on the case before the Court, the ICJ is empowered to rule on provisional measures until it determines the full case before it.
So even if the Court rules that it cannot prevent Venezuela from holding its referendum, Guyana hopes the Court can say something that would prevent Venezuela from taking action on the results of the referendum.
The Attorney General also noted that Guyana has its “national capabilities” and the support of many foreign partners including important international organisations such as the Commonwealth, the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
So Mr. Nandlall said people should not fall prey to hysteria.
Outside of the referendum, the Guyana/ Venezuela border controversy is squarely before the ICJ and Guyana hopes for a final, binding settlement there that reaffirms the 1899 Arbitral Award that established the existing boundary between itself and Venezuela. Essentially, Guyana wants the court to reaffirm that the Essequibo region is its own.
“…Essentially, Guyana wants the court to reaffirm that the Essequibo region is its own….”
The AG is right that should Venezuela refuse to adhere to the Judgment of the ICJ when it is handed down by the latter part of 2024 the matter can be tabled at the Security Council where it must obtain all the votes of the Permanent Members of the Council for the Resolution to be passed and for it to be implemented against Venezuela’s non-acceptance of the Judgment.
Guyana wants the Court to confirm the legal validity of the 1899 Treaty(Arbitration Award) as well as the binding nature of the current boundary separating the Essequibo from Venezuela having regard to the decision of Venezuela in`1962 to denounce the Treaty as being illegal and in its own words “null and void” even though it accepted it for 61 years, is still part of the Constitution of the Venezuela, participated in the plotting of the co-ordinates and the consequent map is part of the official documents of the Constitution.
Venezuela has not advanced any evidence or submission to show why the 1899 Award is in violation of and infringes upon the UN Law of Treaties on the basis of which it can declare the 1905 Treaty null and void and no longer opposable to it.
This matter is not really a legal dispute ( no justification that Venezuela has identified as the basis for its expansionist claim is remotely legally sound) between Guyana and Venezuela but essentially, wholly and exclusively an illegal, unilateral and spuriously outlandish claim by the latter to the Essequibo Region that it never governed nor possessed but its claim being used to mobilise the country for political purposes.
Never in history has Venezuela owned, administered or governed any part of the Essequibo it having passed from the Spanish to the Dutch, then to the British and in 1966 to the Government of Guyana.
In 1966 the British and Venezuela concluded the Geneva Agreement with Guyana’s participation as well. That Agreement empowered the Secretary General of the UN in the event of failure to reach an amicable solution to refer the matter to the ICJ for a legal determination of the legal validity of the 1899 boundary and Treaty of Washington.
The main arguments in support of the re-affirmation of the validity of The Treaty and Boundary location that Guyana must make are:
1. Guyana enjoyed and exercised unbroken and continuous and effective sovereignty and jurisdiction and control over the Essequibo for over123 years both by title and by the customary law of long and continuous occupation to the exclusion of all other states (Island of Palmas Case).
2. That Treaty is opposable to Venezuela and binding on it ( case of estoppel) because it accepted it as legal and adhered to the boundary that was drawn on the basis of the Treaty for over 123 years and cannot now after the passage of a lengthy period of time claim ownership and control over the Essequibo in clear violation of the jurisprudence of the ICJ.
3. There is no visible evidence of a Venezuelan presence in any part of the Essequibo to compromise the overt ownership and control being continuously exercised by Georgetown since even before 1897 over The Essequibo Region.
4. Venezuela’s illegal claim over The Essequibo is a violation of the Sovereignty and political independence that Guyana inherited from the British until 1966 and which it continued to exercise in its own right as an independent state equal in legal status with Venezuela and not to be deprived of its landed patrimony (three fifths of Guyana) and its extensive appurtenant maritime jurisdiction that can extend to 350 miles into the Atlantic without due process of international law, state practice (case law) and adherence to the jurisprudence of the ICJ.