Guayana Esequiba is an important area of about 160,000 km2 that belongs to Venezuela since the Venezuelan Captain General was founded in 1777, and after an emancipatory process under the Principles of Uti Posidetis Iuris must remain ours from the time of the declaration of Independence of the Republic
Through the Treaty of Washington of February 2, 1897 and the fraudulent Paris Arbitration Award of October 3, 1899, Great Britain attempted to strip us of our legal rights and territorial integrity.
However, Venezuela has historically adopted as State doctrine our rightful claim of Sovereignty over Guayana Esequiba, as well as the permanent condemnation of the void and vexing Paris Arbitration Award of 1899.
In 1949, when a posthumous memorandum of one of the Venezuelan lawyers was published in the arbitration award court in Paris for 1899, Severo Mallet-Prevost, in which it was clearly stated that the 1899 arbitration had no legality, because “Three judges who have a majority disposed of Venezuelan territory, because the two British judges are not acting as judges, but as people of the government, as lawyers”uncover the plots and crimes of the Paris Arbitration Court.
As a result, along with a series of elements, Venezuela formally condemned the Paris Arbitration Award in 1962, before the world, especially since the inaugural address of Dr. Marcos Falcón Briceño, then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela, in the general debate of the Seventeenth session of the United Nations General Assembly on October 1, 1962, thereby paving the way for the political and diplomatic negotiations that would give way to the Geneva Agreements of 1966. In his letter to the Secretary General of Venezuela, he stated the following: “The award is the result of political transactions being carried out behind Venezuela’s back and at the expense of its legitimate rights. Those boundaries are determined arbitrarily and the specific rules of the arbitration agreement and relevant principles of international law are not taken into account. Venezuela cannot recognize the award given under such circumstances.”
The Treaty of Geneva, signed on February 17, 1966 in the city of the same name, by the Governments of Venezuela, Great Britain and the British colony of Guiana is the only valid instrument for resolving these territorial disputes, without legal effect, due to defects in cancellation, Award The Paris Arbitration of 1899.
The Geneva Agreement clearly stipulates in Article IV (2) the need for agreement of the parties on the means of peaceful settlement provided for in art. 33 The Charter of the United Nations, and the use of all political and diplomatic means, provided therein: negotiation, inquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, recourse to regional organizations or agreements, or other peaceful means of your choice.
It is important to underline as mentioned by the Vice President of the Republic, Venezuela Dr. Delcy Rodríguez “Venezuela does not recognize a judicial mechanism as a way to resolve the controversy because it does not include the nature and purpose of this agreement.” Nonetheless, the Cooperative Republic of Guyana has filed a unilateral lawsuit against Venezuela before the International Court of Justice.
On 7 June 2022, within the period determined by Article 79bis, paragraph 1 of the Rules of Court, Venezuela filed an initial objection characterized as an exception to the admissibility of the Application, because the Court, in its Judgment in 2020, decided only on the question of jurisdiction and did not provide, explicitly or implicitly, the question of admissibility; in this regard, Venezuela argued that the United Kingdom was an indispensable third party in the trial and that the Court could not decide the question of the legitimacy of the 1899 Award without the British present.
It is interesting to recall one of Venezuela’s arguments referring to the fact that, if the Court held that Britain was responsible for fraudulent conduct, the consequence would be not only that the 1899 Award would cease to have legal effect, but also that Venezuela would have the right to invoke the consequences of the invalidity of a agreement, as set out in article 69 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Contracts
This April 6, 2023 ruling, unanimously, “declares the preliminary objections raised by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela admissible”; This is a diplomatic, legal and historic victory for our country. Nonetheless, by fourteen votes to one, “Rejects the initial objections raised by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela;”
It is noteworthy that in the “Partially divided and partially dissenting opinions” of ad hoc Judge Philippe COUVREUR, it was acknowledged that “These accusations, with a certain degree of seriousness, concern first and foremost the validity of the Washington Agreement, and only immediately call into question the validity of the award: the validity of the treaty will be affected by the fraudulent maneuvers and coercive measures undertaken in particular, to impose on Venezuela predetermined the composition of the arbitral tribunal, according to the wishes of the British, and to exclude the application of the uti possidetis juris rule of 1811, as well as the status quo treaty of 1850, in favor of a greedy prescription, in favor of the British given their behavior on the ground over the last half century. (…) Another accusation that is equally serious is directly related to the validity of the arbitral award given the conditions by which it was supposed to be drafted: Venezuela has alleged, in this sense, collusion between Britain and the powers that shared with it certain geostrategic interests at the time, collusion between Great Britain and arbitrators of their nationality, the undue pressure exerted on arbitrators by the Government of the United Kingdom and the president of the tribunal, the production, by the United Kingdom, of counterfeit cards which should have carried a great deal of weight in the decisions reached, etc. Such conduct, if determined, would not only constitute a latent defect but would also be unlawful, even given the international law in force at the time of the alleged facts.”
This would therefore inevitably imply, on the part of the Court, a prior assessment of the legality of the UK’s actions with respect to Venezuela and, ultimately, the Court would have to settle the dispute on merit, other than one. filed by Guyana before the Court; indeed an incidental Court decision, acknowledging that the UK’s illegal and fraudulent conduct may be reviewed; herein lies the great victory of the Republic in our historic fight to defend Guayana Esequiba.
At this time, the criterion of unity among the Venezuelan people should take precedence over issues of the State such as the territorial controversy over Guayana Esequiba and the Atlantic coast, with the Sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Nation at stake.
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