Guyana yesterday said that it is thoroughly convinced that the Arbitral Award of 1899 is valid and that the final ruling of the International Court of Justice will provide a peaceful settlement of the border controversy with Venezuela.
This sentiment was stated in a release yesterday from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in commemoration of the 125th Anniversary of the Arbitral Award which settled the land boundary between British Guiana and Venezuela.
This “Full, Perfect and Final Settlement”, the release noted, or Una Solucion Completa, Perfecta y Definitiva – is the state of Guyana’s border with Venezuela: Full – Perfect – Final. “They are words of wholeness, of precision, of eternity. They are words of portrayal that have branded Guyana’s western boundary with Venezuela from Punta Playa to the Summit of Mount Roraima.”
Giving a historical overview of the matter, the release said that when Venezuela and Great Britain concluded the Treaty of Washington in 1897, they agreed to submit the dispute regarding the location of their land boundary to binding arbitration before a tribunal of eminent jurists, including the heads of the judiciary of the United States and Great Britain, they agreed in that Treaty to accept the Tribunal’s Award as ‘a full, perfect and final settlement’ of the boundary issue.
That ‘settlement’ is exactly 125 years old today October 3, and Guyana still accepts and honours the Arbitral Award as stipulated by the Treaty.
Further, on October 3, 1899, the Arbitral Tribunal delivered its unanimous Award, which determined the boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana (“the 1899 Award”). The 1899 Award was the culmination of arbitral proceedings during which the respective territorial claims of Great Britain and Venezuela were addressed at great length and in detail by distinguished legal counsel representing the two States, including through many thousands of pages of written submissions and more than 200 hours of oral hearings before the Arbitral Tribunal.
According to the release, Venezuela, for its part, treated the Award as a final settlement of the boundary for more than six decades after it was delivered. It consistently recognised, affirmed, and relied upon the 1899 Award as, “a full, perfect, and final” determination of the boundary with British Guiana. Between 1900 and 1905, together with the British, Venezuela participated in a joint demarcation of the boundary, in strict adherence to the letter of the 1899 Award, and emphatically refused to countenance even minor technical modifications of the boundary line described in the Award. Then in 1905, they signed the Agreement fixing the boundary in strict conformity with the 1899 Award.
Venezuela proceeded to formally ratify the demarcated boundary in its domestic law and thereafter published official maps, which depicted the boundary following the line described in the 1899 Award. However, in 1962 as the independence of British Guiana dawned, Venezuela drew up barricades to this country’s full freedom from Great Britain in the UN’s Special Committee on Decolonization.
The release put forward the view that Venezuela upon recognising that it would be neighbour to a nascent State and in keeping with its expansionist ambition, abandoned the rule of law and good faith, and laid claims to Guyana’s Essequibo territory.
“As Guyana commemorates the anniversary of the Arbitral Award of 3 October 1899, we do so with respect for the rule of international law and our pacta sunt servanda obligation.”
The release explained that based on the determination of the United Nations Secretary-General, pursuant to the 1966 Geneva Agreement, Guyana instituted proceedings by Application to the International Court of Justice on 29 March, 2018, asking the Court to resolve the controversy that has arisen as a result of Venezuela’s unfounded contention that the 1899 Arbitral Award Regarding the Boundary between the Colony of British Guiana and the United States of Venezuela is “null and void.”
In Judgments issued in 2020 and 2023, the International Court of Justice twice affirmed its jurisdiction over the case, and its determination to resolve the controversy between Guyana and Venezuela in conformity with international law.
“The Government of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana has never been more convinced that the Arbitral Award of 1899 is valid, and that the rule of international law and the processes of the International Court of Justice will provide a peaceful settlement of the matter. Today again we call for honour as we celebrate on this anniversary date that faithful Arbitral Award of Paris of 3rd October 1899, in continued respect for the sanctity of Treaties and the rule of law.”
