[Kaieteur News] The International Court of Justice (ICJ), on Thursday dismissed Venezuela’s preliminary objection in the Guyana/Venezuela border controversy case.
Venezuela in its preliminary objection submitted that the United Kingdom (UK) is an indispensable third party to the proceedings and that the Court cannot decide the question of the validity of the 1899 Arbitral Award in the United Kingdom’s absence.
Venezuela argued that a judgment of the Court on the merits in this case would involve, as a prerequisite, an evaluation of the lawfulness of certain “fraudulent conduct” allegedly attributable to the United Kingdom in respect of the 1899 Award.
However, Guyana argued that Venezuela’s preliminary objection concerns the exercise of the Court’s jurisdiction and should be rejected as inadmissible, because it is jurisdictional in nature and not an objection to admissibility.
Guyana submitted that the Court’s Order of 19 June 2018, in which the Court decided that the written pleadings were first to be addressed to the question of its jurisdiction, required the Parties to plead “all of the legal and factual grounds on which the Parties rely in the matter of its jurisdiction”.
Thursday’s decision paves the way for the ICJ to move forward with hearing Guyana’s substantive case. Guyana has asked the International Court to rule on the validity of the Arbitral Award and its determination of the boundary between Guyana and Venezuela.
Guyana has also prayed for the Court to determine whether the boundary established by that Award and the 1905 Agreement demarcating it, is the lawful boundary between the two countries.
In delivering the ruling, President of the Court, Joan E. Donoghue, said that the court made a majority decision in favour of Guyana.
President Donoghue disclosed that out of the panel of 15 judges that adjudicated the matter; 14 ruled in favour of Guyana while one judge ruled against.
Venezuela had sought to have the case thrown out on the basis of its objection. But the ICJ did not agree with that contention and ruled that Venezuela participated in discussions with Guyana during the Mixed Commission and the Good Offices process and never requested the involvement of the United Kingdom.
“The court concludes that the Geneva agreement specifies particular roles for Guyana and Venezuela, and that its provisions including Article eight, do not provide a role for the United Kingdom in choosing or in participating in the means of settlement of the dispute pursuant to Article four,” the ICJ found.
Further, President Donoghue said that the court considers that the Scheme established by Articles Two and Four of the Geneva Agreement reflects a common understanding of all parties to that agreement, that the controversy which existed between the United Kingdom and Venezuela on 17 February 1966 would be settled by Guyana and Venezuela through one of the Dispute Settlement Procedures envisaged in the Agreement.
The Judge also said that both parties were in agreement that Great Britain had no role to play in the settlement of the controversy.
“The Court concludes that by virtue of being a party to the Geneva Agreement, the United Kingdom accepted that the dispute between Guyana and Venezuela could be settled by one of the means set out by the UN Charter. If the court on the judgment of its merits were called to pronounce on certain conduct attributed to the United Kingdom, which cannot be determined at present, this would not preclude the court from exercising its jurisdiction which is based on the application of the Geneva Agreement. The Preliminary objections raised by Venezuela must therefore be rejected,” she said.
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