HGP Nightly News – Guyana is asking the International Court of Justice to go beyond declarations and order Venezuela to undo the steps it has taken to treat Guyana’s Essequibo region as Venezuelan territory.
Making submissions before the World Court, British attorney Edward Craven urged the ICJ to impose remedial measures on Venezuela, including an order for the withdrawal and destruction of official maps showing Guyana’s Essequibo as part of Venezuela.
“The court should also order that Venezuela must withdraw and destroy the official maps that purport to depict Guyana-Essequiba as part of Venezuela,” Craven told the court.
Guyana’s legal team is arguing that Venezuela has repeatedly defied provisional measures issued by the ICJ since December 2023. Those measures are binding and create international legal obligations for Venezuela, Craven said.
He told the court that Venezuela’s conduct shows a pattern of deliberate non-compliance.
“In short, the factual record demonstrates that from the moment the court made its first provisional measures order… Venezuela deliberately, repeatedly and flagrantly violated the provisional measures indicated by the court,” Craven stated.
At the centre of Guyana’s request is the argument that Venezuela must restore the position that existed before the alleged breaches. Craven said Guyana is seeking two major remedies: a formal declaration that Venezuela violated the court’s orders, and an order requiring Venezuela to reverse every measure taken in breach of them.
That includes revoking laws, decrees and other domestic actions that Guyana says were used to incorporate its territory into Venezuela or extend Venezuelan authority over Essequibo.
“The court should order Venezuela to revoke… each and every law, decree and other domestic act which has been enacted or taken in violation of those provisional measures orders,” Craven said.
He argued that these steps are necessary under international law to repair the effects of Venezuela’s actions and re-establish the situation that would likely have existed had the breaches not occurred.
Craven said such an order would not be excessive or burdensome, but a direct legal consequence of Venezuela’s conduct.
“An order in these terms is a logical, reasonable and legally inescapable consequence of Venezuela’s breaches,” he said.
Guyana’s case before the ICJ seeks confirmation of the 1899 Arbitral Award, which fixed the boundary between then-British Guiana and Venezuela. The Essequibo region accounts for more than 70 per cent of Guyana’s territory.
Venezuela is scheduled to present its submissions on Wednesday.
