Venezuela’s Rodríguez to defend Essequibo claim before ICJ in The Hague

Delcy Rodríguez arrives in Netherlands for Essequibo ICJ hearings

Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez arrived in the Netherlands to appear before the International Court of Justice in a long-running case with Guyana over the Essequibo region, the Associated Press reported. The court in The Hague is holding hearings between the two countries, both of which claim ownership of the mineral- and oil-rich territory.

The Essequibo dispute has spanned decades and centers on competing claims about how the border lines were set and later altered, according to the AP report. The final court hearing with Rodríguez’s appearance is scheduled for Monday, and the court is expected to take months to issue a legally binding ruling.

Essequibo, located in western Guyana, covers nearly 62,000 square miles and is described as rich in natural resources including gold, diamonds and timber. The territory is also near massive offshore oil deposits, a factor that has kept the dispute closely watched in both countries.

The hearings follow an earlier decision by arbitrators in 1899 that drew the border along the Essequibo River largely in favor of what is now Guyana, the report said. Venezuela has maintained since colonial times that Essequibo was within its boundaries, but the 19th-century arbitration established a different line.

Venezuela’s position relies in part on a later diplomatic step, according to the AP account. Venezuela argues that a 1966 agreement signed in Geneva effectively nullified the 1899 arbitration, while Guyana has brought the case to the ICJ seeking confirmation of which instrument controls the border lines.

Guyana brought the matter before the ICJ in 2018, the report said, to confirm that the 1899 ruling—not the 1966 agreement—draws the boundary lines. Venezuela has said its participation in the hearings does not mean it consents to or recognizes the court’s jurisdiction.

At the opening of the hearings, Guyanese Foreign Minister Hugh Hilton Todd told the international judges that the dispute “has been a blight on our existence as a sovereign state from the beginning” and said that 70% of Guyana’s territory is at stake, according to the AP report.

After landing at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, Rodríguez said Venezuela has “demonstrated at every historical stage what our territory has meant since we were born as a Republic,” the report said.