The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is set to deliver its ruling this Friday, December 1, 2023, on Guyana’s request for provisional measures to prevent Venezuela from proceeding with its planned referendum in its current form, which contains questions that threaten Guyana’s territorial integrity.

The court, situated at the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, issued notices on Tuesday morning, indicating that Judge Joan E. Donoghue, the President of the ICJ, will announce the orders during a public hearing.

Guyana is seeking from the court an order preventing Venezuela from taking any action to seize, acquire, encroach upon, or assert or exercise sovereignty over the Essequibo region or any other part of Guyana’s national territory, pending the court’s final determination of the validity of the 1899 Arbitral Award that established the land boundary between the two states and the final and binding nature of that boundary.