Kaieteur News

GEORGETOWN
EnergiesNet.com 03 09 2022

Guyana has submitted to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands, its Memorial on the merits of its case against Venezuela. The submission takes the court one step closer to ruling on the matter

The submission is as required by the Court following its decision of 18 December, 2020 to hear the case.

The decision was a confirmation of its jurisdiction to decide the merits of Guyana’s border claims. The court case stems from the dispute between Guyana and Venezuela over the ownership of the Essequibo Region.

The matter is before the Court pursuant to the decision of the Secretary General (SG) of the United Nations under the 1966 Geneva Agreement, by which the parties conferred upon the SG the authority to determine the means by which the border controversy between Guyana and Venezuela shall be settled.

Guyana seeks from the Court a decision that the Arbitral Award of 1899 determining the boundary is valid and binding upon Guyana and Venezuela, and that the boundary established by that Award and the 1905 Agreement demarcating it, is the lawful boundary between Guyana and Venezuela. The Court has agreed in its earlier decision that it has jurisdiction to do so.

According to a statement from Foreign Affairs Ministry, Guyana now looks to the Court’s judicial process and its settlement of the matter under the rule of law.

This year, sees the 56th anniversary of the 1966 Geneva Agreement.

The Ministry noted that as such, Guyana considers that the true commemoration of that agreement is in contributing in good faith to the fulfillment of its true meaning and intent by participating fully in the current juridical process deriving from it.

Hence the submission on Tuesday to the ICJ’s memorial on the merits as required by the Court.

On December 18, 2020, President of the ICJ, Justice Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, noted that the Court’s jurisdiction to hear the case is founded upon the conferral of both countries in the authority of the UN Secretary-General under Article Four, Paragraph Two of the February 17, 1966 Geneva Agreement.
That agreement was brokered by the then UN Secretary General, U Thant.

In his ruling, the ICJ President said that the agreement allowed the Secretary-General to choose a means of settlement under Article 33 of the Charter of the United Nations, which included judicial settlement.

In the circumstances, the ICJ found that the questions of the validity of the 1899 Award and of the definitive settlement of the land boundary dispute between Guyana and Venezuela fall within the Court’s jurisdiction.

While examining the legal effect of the decision of the Secretary-General on its jurisdiction under its statute, President Yusuf noted that “[t]he jurisdiction of the Court comprises all cases which the parties refer to it and all matters specially provided for in the Charter of the United Nations or in treaties and conventions in force.”

The Court, he said recalls that Venezuela has argued that the Geneva Agreement is not sufficient in itself to found the jurisdiction of the Court and the subsequent consent of the parties for the Secretary-General to choose the means of judicial settlement.

“…[But] the Court concluded that, by conferring on the Secretary-General the authority to choose the appropriate means of settlement of their controversy, including the possibility of recourse to judicial settlement by the International Court of Justice, Guyana and Venezuela consented to its jurisdiction.”

It was nonetheless noted that the ICJ does not have jurisdiction to entertain Guyana’s claims arising from events that occurred after the signature of the Geneva Agreement.

In this regard, Justice Yusuf said that Guyana had contended that the Court’s jurisdiction extends to all the claims submitted in its application, on the grounds that the Court’s jurisdiction is determined by the text of the Geneva Agreement.

Further, in giving an overview on the contentions, Justice Yusuf noted Guyana’s argument is that since the 1899 Award delimited the boundary between Venezuela and the colony of British Guiana, the controversy between the parties is territorial and the Court must therefore necessarily determine the boundary between Venezuela and Guyana, which implies first deciding whether the Award is valid.

He said that “Guyana further argues that the Court would not be in a position to reach ‘a full agreement for the solution’ of this dispute by addressing “any outstanding questions,” which is the objective set forth under Article IV of the Geneva Agreement, without first ruling on the validity of the Award.”
On the other hand, the World Court President noted that in its memo, Venezuela alleges that the question of the validity of the 1899 Award is not part of the controversy under the Geneva Agreement.

“According to Venezuela,” he said, “the Geneva Agreement was adopted on the basis that the merits of the contention of nullity of the Award could not be discussed between the parties as the “validity or nullity of an arbitral award is non-negotiable.”

The judge said that Venezuela considers that “the subject-matter of the Geneva Agreement is the territorial dispute, not the validity or nullity of the 1899 Award.

Kaieturnewsonline.com 03 09 2022