…Foreign Ministry’s team maps out broad options for ICJ
…Cabinet to deliberate, give policy guidance

FOREIGN Affairs Minister, Carl Greenidge and his team of advisors and lawyers are currently finalising a report consisting of broad options the Government of Guyana must consider as it moves to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for a final settlement on the longstanding territorial controversy with Venezuela.

The report will be submitted to Cabinet this week. On the sideline of a National Consultative Meeting on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration at the Pegasus Hotel on Monday, Greenidge who is also performing duties as Prime Minister told reporters that Cabinet will meet this week to discuss the implications of the United Nations (UN) Secretary General (SG) Antonio Guterres’ decision to refer the Guyana/Venezuela Border Territorial Controversy to the ICJ.

In the interim, the Foreign Affairs Ministry, its team of advisors and lawyers, met all day Sunday hammering out broad options the Guyanese Government should consider in moving to the World Court. “They (have) mapped out the broad options, the issues that needed immediate attention and those for which the Cabinet has to give policy guidance. So in the course of the week, that report will be presented to the Cabinet and Cabinet will make some decisions,” the Foreign Affairs Minister told reporters.

Government, he explained, will have to decide on how it will approach the ICJ and on matters relating to its legal team. In an escrow account at the Bank of Guyana, Government has already set aside US$15M to accommodate legal fees. In response to the UNSG’s decision to refer the territorial controversy to the World Court on the basis that no significant progress had been made at the level of the Good Offices process, Venezuela objected while maintaining its historical position that the Good Offices process should continue.

But Minister Greenidge said the UNSG’s decision to refer the Guyana/Venezuela Territorial Controversy to the ICJ has effectively brought an end to the Good Offices process. “The Good Offices process as Guyanese know it has finished. It has been completed. We have been at it for 25 years and within the post 1966 or within the life of the Geneva Agreement, the mechanisms set out there have all been exhausted. We are now moving to the one chosen by the SG,” he said.

Venezuela after agreeing and honouring the 1899 Arbitral Tribunal Award for half of a century, the Spanish-speaking country in 1962 unilaterally and without any basis or evidence contended that the 1899 Award was null and avoid. The 1899 Arbitral Tribunal Award had given more than 90 per cent of an area to then British Guiana (now Guyana).

By February 1966, the Geneva Agreement was reached. It was under that agreement that both Guyana and Venezuela in 1982 requested the intervention of the UN Secretary General in deciding on the method to bring the controversy to an end. After years of no significant progress at the level of the Good Offices, Guyana requested that the matter be referred to the ICJ.

Article V of the Geneva Agreement provides for Guyana and Venezuela to refer the decision of the means of settlement to an appropriate international organ on which they both agree but it also provides for the Secretary General to refer the matter to appropriate international organ if the countries fail to reach an agreement.

In making his decision, Mr. Guterres also concluded that the two countries “could” benefit from the continued Good Offices of the UN through a complementary process.

Minister Greenidge said Guyana has no difficulty in working along with the UNSG and other parties involved. “We have and we will continue to be members of the UN and within the framework of the United Nations, the SG has a role in any dialogue between countries that may pose challenges in that regard, and I take it that Venezuela is clearly aware of that framework. In that regard we stand ready to work along with the SG, Venezuela and whoever else to solve any problem that may arise in this phase,” the Foreign Affairs Minister explained.

However, he made it clear that the Good Offices process and all other forms of mediation have been exhausted. “In the dialogue of course, if there are any new ideas, those new ideas will be considered but the process in the court will go ahead,” he further clarified.

Asked whether Guyana will go to the ICJ alone, if Venezuela upholds its position, the Foreign Affairs Minister said it is a non-issue for Guyana, stating clearly that the UNSG has already handed down its decision – that is – to refer the territorial controversy to the ICJ.

“The court is a forum at which you can each represent yourself, it is none of my business as to who else is there. The issue is this, that there is an allegation which forms the nub of the contention that is the controversy and that says that this Treaty of 1899 is null and void, that’s what the court has to decide,” the Foreign Minister stated.

“Venezuela has said that the treaty is null and void, if they are so convinced that it is null and void that’s the forum to represent their case,” he added.

Maintaining that the matter is a legal one, Minister Greenidge emphasised that it ought to be resolved at an appropriate forum – that is – the ICJ. “This direction is to resolve an allegation, a claim that somehow a treaty – an international treaty is null and void. And it doesn’t matter who is listening or who doesn’t want to support their own arguments, we have said it is a legal issue; the UN has said it is a legal issue; it is to be resolved in an appropriate forum,” he posited.

It is the role of the ICJ to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorised United Nations organs. For the Guyana Government, the legal opinion is all that is needed to prove its case. “We are saying is that whatever opinion the ICJ cares to give will be the opinion we seek. A question has to be put to the ICJ and the ICJ will determine the extent of its own competence and that we are prepared to accept. We are not here to define the role of the ICJ. In other words we have asked the UN Secretary General to refer the matter to the ICJ, now that it has been referred, I am not going to get into a big argument as to whether it has powers,” Minister Greenidge said.

“Guyana concern as conveyed to the Secretary-General is that a shadow has been cast over Guyana’s development for the last 51 years and it will remain so for as long as there is any doubt as to the status of the treaty that we signed in 1899,” he added. He maintained that the role of the court is to determine the validity of the 1899 Arbitral Award.