Sir Shridath Ramphal, with support from several international lawyers, yesterday morning argued at a historic hearing  before the World Court that it has the jurisdiction to decide that the Paris Award which settled the boundary between Guyana and Venezuela is valid and binding.

During the three-hour hearing Sir Shridath, Canadian Professor Payam Akhavan, US lawyer Paul Reichler and British-French lawyer Phillipe Sands presented the Court with a detailed history of the controversy beginning with the 1897 Treaty of Washington which established the tribunal that negotiated the award and concluded with Guyana’s application to the Court in 2018.

“Guyana’s case is based in the plain text of the Geneva Agreement by which the parties expressly consented to accept the decision of the SG on the means of resolution of (the controversy) over the validity of the 1899 award including judicial settlement by this Court and that the (controversy)  shall be settled by the International Court of Justice if that be the means chosen by the SG,” Sir Shridath stated.

“[After] almost 60 years of Venezuela trying and failing to spoil the sanctity of the Treaty of Washington and to nullify the Paris Award, the Secretary-General of the United Nations indicated to the Presidents of Guyana and Venezuela in these words and I quote ‘I have fulfilled the responsibility that has fallen on me within the framework set by my predecessor and significant progress not having been made toward arriving at a full agreement for dissolution of the controversy, I have chosen the International Court of Justice as the means that is now to be used for its solution.’

Reichler told the Court that this entirely new reading of Article IV (2) is not only inconsistent with the text which refers to the SG choice as a “decision” but is also contrary to the position of their then Foreign Minister who in 1966 told the National Congress that “there is an unequivocal interpretation that the selection of the means of settlement will be made only by the Secretary General of the United Nations.”