Border case

Venezuela objections to Guyana border case ‘incoherent’, `factually baseless,’ Philippe Sands KC tells World Court: Venezuela’s preliminary objections to Guyana’s application to the World Court for the validation of the 1899 arbitral award setting the boundaries between the two countries were on Friday dismissed as incoherent, legally misconceived and factually baseless. This was the conclusion of one of Guyana’s lawyers, Philippe Sands KC, when he and others on this country’s panel rejected Caracas’s arguments delivered the day before at the International Court of Justice (World Court) in the Hague, the Netherlands. Sands likened Venezuela’s objections to a football game. “Venezuela’s Preliminary Objections are the legal equivalent of a deus ex machina or, to use a sporting analogy, an attempt to bring to an end, in the 89th minute, a football match that is being lost, by procuring a pitch invasion so grave that the referee has no option but to suspend the game. But like the most implausible sudden plot twist in a decent novel, the reader can see right through the author’s intentions. And, like every football game, the 90th minute arrives and the match is brought to a normal end — and the game is lost — by the referee’s final whistle,” he told the court. After decades of futile talks with Venezuela over the controversy that arose over the 1899 arbitral award, Guyana decided in 2018 to approach the ICJ for a validation of the award and its binding nature on Caracas. After initially shunning the process, Caracas is now participating and is contending Guyana’s case is not admissible before the ICJ. Guyana on Friday also argued that Caracas’ contention that the United Kingdom (UK) is a proper party in the matter is, among other things, “absurd,” since the UK, Guyana’s former colonial power has no legal right nor interest in the matter or the disputed territory and has itself long stated this. The ICJ is currently hearing preliminary objections by Venezuela to Guyana’s case seeking a ruling that the 1899 arbitration ruling delineating the boundary between the two countries is valid and binding.