Overturning the 1899 Arbitral Award that settled the Guyana-Venezuela border dispute would threaten the stability of international boundaries worldwide and “rekindle the embers of dead empires”, Guyana’s lead counsel, Professor Philippe Sands, told the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Friday.
Appearing before the World Court, Sands argued that Venezuela’s challenge to the award was based not on new evidence, but on a political attempt to reopen a matter settled for more than a century.
“The argument is tosh. It’s a fiction,” Sands told the court as he dismissed Venezuela’s reliance on the 1949 Mallet-Prevost memorandum, which Caracas has long used to argue that the award was invalid.
Sands said Venezuela was aware from the moment the award was issued in 1899 that the ruling involved compromise among arbitrators, pointing to newspaper reports published shortly after the decision in publications including The New York Times and The Times of London.
According to Sands, Venezuela accepted the ruling for 63 years, negotiated and signed the 1905 treaty implementing the boundary, and adhered to it for decades before reversing its position in 1962.
“There is not a shred of evidence” that the tribunal’s president engaged in extortion or coercion, Sands argued, rejecting Venezuela’s claims that the award resulted from political blackmail.
He further stated that efforts by arbitrators to secure consensus were a normal feature of international arbitration. “The striving for consensus is an act of decency and wisdom,” he said.
Sands also rejected Venezuela’s attempt to frame the dispute as a legacy of colonial injustice through comparisons with the ICJ’s Chagos advisory opinion.
“Chagos offers no assistance whatsoever to Venezuela. It is totally different,” he told the judges.
Warning of broader global implications, Sands said overturning an arbitral award and treaty more than a century old would undermine the stability of borders established after independence across Africa, Latin America and elsewhere.
“You would rekindle the embers of dead empires,” Sands cautioned.
“You would plunge Guyana into a new form of domination and oppression in relations with its much larger neighbour.”
He added that accepting Venezuela’s arguments “would threaten to open the gates of challenge to any and every colonial-era arbitration award or boundary settlement”.
Professor Nilüfer Oral also told the court that Venezuela’s conduct between 1899 and 1962 demonstrated repeated acceptance and implementation of the boundary established by the award.
“Venezuela was fully aware in 1899, or at least by 1900, of each and every ground it now asserts for invalidating the award,” Oral said.
She described Venezuela’s claim that it only became aware of alleged defects after publication of the Mallet-Prevost memorandum in 1949 as “a complete fiction”.
According to Oral, Venezuelan officials knew from the outset about issues now being cited to challenge the award, including claims regarding lack of reasons, compromise among arbitrators and procedural impropriety.
Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall urged the court to issue a “directly, explicitly and unambiguously” worded judgement affirming the validity of the award.
“For Guyana and its people, the stakes could scarcely be higher,” Nandlall told the court.
He said Guyanese had lived for generations under the “long and threatening shadow” of Venezuela’s claim to more than 70 per cent of Guyana’s territory.
The Attorney General also criticised what he described as Venezuela’s attempts to rewrite the history of the Essequibo region, including claims made during the hearings regarding the origin of the Essequibo River’s name.
“The name of the Essequibo River is, in fact, derived from an Indigenous word, ‘Dishikibo’ (or ‘Jishikibo’), meaning ‘fireside’, which was later adopted by the Dutch and the British,” he said.
He added: “If the court accepts Guyana’s arguments, as we are confident that it will, then it is essential that the court’s judgement directly, explicitly and unambiguously affirm the validity of the 1899 Award in its integrity and the boundary which it established,” he urged.
Hearings before the ICJ will continue on Monday with Venezuela’s final presentation. (Credit: Excerpts from DPI contained in this story)
