"Venezuela’s historic position is not an act of rebellion nor a disregard for the Court"

Añadido: 2026-05-14

[00:00:01]Mr. President, distinguished members of the court, all those present at this hearing, I come before this court to bring you the voice of a people who deeply cherish justice, peace, and international law.

[00:00:22]The people of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

[00:00:27]On the 3rd of December, 2023, our people turned out in large numbers at the polls and gave us a series of clear and unequivocal mandates.

[00:00:40]Allow me to highlight the following.

[00:00:43]Firstly, the mandate to maintain the historical position of not submitting existential matters such as independence and territorial integrity to judicial mechanisms. Secondly, the mandate to uphold the Geneva Agreement as instrument for resolving the territorial dispute over Guayana Esequiba.

[00:01:10]Thirdly, to defend in by all peaceful means, in line with international law, the territory of Guayana Esequiba.

[00:01:21]True to these mandates this afternoon, Mr. President, members of the court, Venezuela's historical position of not submitting matters related to its vital interests to judicial dispute resolution mechanisms is not an act of defiance nor of disregard of the court as an institution.

[00:01:47]Venezuela is a fervent promoter and defender of international law.

[00:01:53]For this reason, it respects the International Court of Justice as the main judicial body of the United Nations.

[00:02:03]However, this is a matter of defending one of the essential attributes of our state, namely its sovereignty.

[00:02:11]Venezuela has never consented to submitting the territorial controversy over Guayana Esequiba to the jurisdiction of this court.

[00:02:22]In no way does Article 4 of the Geneva Agreement constitute a compromisory clause.

[00:02:31]With this in mind, since 2018, Venezuela has filed a number of submissions and has intervened in several hearings before this court with a double purpose. Firstly, to attempt to uphold international law in the face of this anti-legal absurdity promoted by Guyana. Secondly, to demonstrate to the world the truth regarding the rights that since its inception have belonged to Venezuela with regard to the territory of Guayana Esequiba.

[00:03:07]This does not imply in any way recognition of the court's jurisdiction in the territorial controversy.

[00:03:17]So, Mr. President, members of the court, the territorial controversy over Guayana Esequiba is governed by a legally binding international treaty that must be complied with by the parties in good faith. This instrument is none other than the 1966 Geneva Agreement.

[00:03:41]It is a unique treaty for which it would be hard to find a parallel in decolonization practice. It seeks to resolve a colonial injustice through a mutually acceptable settlement.

[00:03:57]A negotiated solution is, therefore, an inevitable and an indispensable condition of the controversy.

[00:04:07]The Geneva Agreement buries and moves beyond the discussion over the validity or the invalidity of the 1899 Award. The agreement recognizes that the boundary dispute could not be resolved in those terms and directs it towards a process aimed at achieving a practical, satisfactory, and mutually acceptable outcome.

[00:04:33]This framework cannot be circumvented, reformulated, nor replaced through unilateral recourse to judicial resolution.

[00:04:45]It is law between the parties.

[00:04:48]The preparatory work on the Geneva Agreement, its title, its preamble, its articles, as well as the subsequent practice of the parties, demonstrate that resolving the legal issue of the validity or invalidity of the award was never on the horizon. It was not ever a legal controversy.

[00:05:13]The object, the nature, and the purpose have always been to resolve the territorial controversy of Guyana and Venezuela through political, peaceful, and diplomatic negotiation.

[00:05:26]The dispute, the controversy, does not concern the confirmation nor the invalidation of an award. It concerns the resolution of a territorial dispute that both parties expressly recognized as unresolved in 1966 and for which they specifically agreed upon a method of resolution.

[00:05:50]For that method is negotiation, not imposition.

[00:05:54]There are no winners or losers.

[00:05:57]This negotiation process was neither exhausted nor was it abandoned by Venezuela. It was undermined by Guyana's conduct at a time when the mechanisms provided for in the Geneva Agreement remained fully in force. Guyana unilaterally chose to shift the controversy from the realm of negotiation to that of judicial resolution in open violation of the agreed-upon legal framework.

[00:06:27]That shift was not innocent. It coincided with an oil find in 2015 described as world-renowned. Guyana at that point ceased to act in good faith and harbored a silent intention to evade compliance with the Geneva Agreement.

[00:06:52]From that moment on, Guyana abandoned the logic of a mutually acceptable solution and it adopted an unlawful strategy of judicialization aimed at obtaining through this court and without Venezuela's consent what it was not able to achieve under the Geneva Agreement, i.e., validation of a fraudulent award.

[00:07:15]It was an all or nothing approach.

[00:07:19]Negotiation was replaced by litigation.

[00:07:23]Good offices by pressure.

[00:07:26]And political consensus by a unilateral action that perpetuates and exacerbates the dispute.

[00:07:34]Venezuela cannot accept this shift driven by Guyana redefining the nature of the controversy or the manner in which it should be resolved.

[00:07:47]Nor can it support the use of the court as an instrument to consolidate that change in violation of the Geneva Agreement and of international law.

[00:08:05]Mr. President, this is not a criticism of the judicial function.

[00:08:11]On the contrary, it [snorts] is a defense of its scope.

[00:08:16]This court was not created to supplant the will of states, but to act within the limits defined by that will.

[00:08:27]And those limits in this case are clearly established in the Geneva Agreement.

[00:08:37]Let's be clear. Venezuela will not renounce its history, nor its legitimate rights, rights expressly recognized and preserved in the Geneva Agreement, simply because Guyana now seeks unilaterally and opportunistically to redefine the controversy. For us, the Guayana Esequiba is not just about mere economic and commercial interests. It is part of our inalienable historical legacy.

[00:09:09]Guyana is evading its obligations. It's seeking to revive a debate over the validity or the invalidity of the award. And through this manipulation, the agreement itself, the the agreement itself, the Port of Spain Protocol, and decades of bilateral negotiations, including those conducted under the good offices of several UN Secretaries-General, are being disregarded.

[00:09:39]And this is not an oversight. It is a clear violation of the 1966 agreement, which does not stand up to rigorous scrutiny. The narrative presented belongs to a different account, one that is divorced from historical and legal precedent. It invites the court, in bad faith, to set aside more than a century of state practice in favor of a doctored version of reality.

[00:10:11]Mr. President, members of the court, as part of its defense of the truth, Venezuela has made available to this court and henceforth to the world abundant evidence confirming its historical rights over Guayana Esequiba, as well as the parties' decision to resolve the territorial dispute through the Geneva Agreement.

[00:10:38]Despite the British blockade of evidentiary sources and despite the destruction of documents, Venezuela has compiled and submitted a comprehensive and coherent body of documentation consisting of more than 3,000 pages of evidence distributed across a number of volumes.

[00:11:00]The body of evidence presented to the court includes international treaties and agreements.

[00:11:08]It includes colonial and historical documents, extensive diplomatic correspondence, negotiation records, official statements, United Nations documents, as well as a substantial collection of maps.

[00:11:29]Taken as a whole, this evidence confirms the nullity of the 1899 arbitral award.

[00:11:37]It also unequivocally reflects long-standing practice and mutual recognition by Guyana and Venezuela of the existence of a territorial dispute and the need to resolve it through direct negotiations aimed at reaching a mutually satisfactory solution as established in and required by the 1966 Geneva Agreement.

[00:12:07]The [snorts] evidence is irrefutable.

[00:12:10]Guayana Esequiba has been part of Venezuela's territory since the country's inception in 1777 the Spanish Crown created the Captaincy General of Venezuela comprising among others the province of Guayana.

[00:12:31]This administrative unit is the territorial origin of what later became the Republic of Venezuela which arose from its declaration of independence and its 1811 constitution.

[00:12:47]Since then every constitution of the Republic of Venezuela has reflected the fact that Guayana Esequiba is part of Venezuela's territory.

[00:12:57]In 1825 the United Kingdom recognized Gran Colombia.

[00:13:03]Its eastern border was the territory of Venezuela's Guayana Esequiba. The United Kingdom never held any title to the territory of Guayana Esequiba.

[00:13:14]Its successor state did not hold it either and nor does it hold it now, though it seeks to artificially forge such a title through this misleading proceedings.

[00:13:26]Beginning in 1840, the British Crown aware then of the immense gold reserves in the territory designed a strategy to plunder it.

[00:13:38]To this end, it enlisted a German adventurer to unilaterally draw an arbitrary line within Venezuelan territory, the so-called Schomburg Line, which has never been validated nor recognized by Venezuela.

[00:13:56]Later, the United Kingdom attempted to consolidate this dispossession through a sham arbitration, which concluded with the fraudulent and rigged award of 1899.

[00:14:07]Today, there's an attempt to validate that fraud through this biased process riddled with legal inconsistencies.

[00:14:16]There are even those who have dared to publicly predict the outcome of these proceedings.

[00:14:23]The truth of the award and its deceptive nature highlights Guyana's intention and that of those who pushed it towards this reckless action to tarnish and to erode the prestige of this court.

[00:14:40]How can they expect this court to stain its own history with a ruling that revives, validates, legitimizes such a case of colonial judicial fraud? Mr. President, distinguished members of the court, the negotiating process carried out by the parties following the signing of the Geneva Agreement demonstrates that there are various mechanisms available to definitively resolve the territorial dispute.

[00:15:09]All are based on political dialogue and direct negotiation between the parties.

[00:15:16]Both in the joint commission talks and in the good offices Both parties put forward creative proposals aimed at reaching a practical, satisfactory, and mutually acceptable settlement.

[00:15:35]In fact, the former Prime Minister of Guyana himself, Forbes Burnham, signatory to the Geneva Agreement, proposed signing a new agreement that would settle the border issue linked to the construction of a hydroelectric project in the Upper Mazaruni region.

[00:15:54]It should be noted that every step, every mechanism throughout this whole process was taken, was adopted with the prior and express consent of both parties to the Geneva Agreement.

[00:16:09]Regrettably, the UN Secretary-General abandoned this practice, this repeated practice, which had been followed for over 50 years, yielding to strong and intense pressure from lobbyists hired by the Cooperative Republic of Guyana.

[00:16:29]Driven by powerful energy interests, as we can see from the confessions of the former Guyanese Minister, Raphael Trotman, this led to a dangerous exacerbation of the controversy between the parties.

[00:16:48]President, distinguished members of the court, the global energy landscape points to high demand for hydrocarbons in the short and in the medium term, driven, amongst other factors, by a boom in new technology.

[00:17:07]As you know, Venezuela has the world's largest reserves of oil on the planet, and it's considered a strategic target by major powers.

[00:17:17]At the heart of the current development of this territorial dispute lies the region's hydrocarbon wealth, which has sparked the interest of major consumers and transnational oil companies that see the resources available in the area as a major opportunity. These vital interests have further complicated this historical dispute.

[00:17:46]We have no doubt that only a practical, satisfactory, and mutually acceptable settlement can create the conditions of stability and trust required for both countries, as well as the interests of third parties present to fully capitalize on the potential of this territory for the benefit of sustainable economic development and the social well-being of the peoples of the region.

[00:18:18]Mr. President, the dichotomous approach of validity or invalidity of the award put forward by Guyana in its unilateral application is profoundly pernicious and futile.

[00:18:34]No judgment by this court on the territorial controversy will provide a definitive solution acceptable to both parties. On the contrary, it will exacerbate the differences between the parties and will lead the parties to entrench themselves in their respective positions, distancing them from the practical, satisfactory, and mutually acceptable settlement to which they committed in 1966 by signing the Geneva Agreement.

[00:19:03]Such a judgment may conclude the case, but it will not put an end to the territorial dispute over the Guayana Esequiba as conceived and as agreed upon by Venezuela, the United Kingdom, and Guyana.

[00:19:19]At best, it would lead to a return to the same impasse that the Geneva Agreement overcame.

[00:19:27]Proof of this can be found in Guyana's unprecedented extravagant submissions before this court, which reflect an inexcusable spirit of superiority.

[00:19:41]Just as colonial empires erased the history of the peoples they sought to dominate, this court is being asked to order the destruction of maps, to prohibit the teaching of history, to eliminate symbols, to tear Guayana Esequiba from the hearts of Venezuelans.

[00:19:57]The aim is to erase the memory of a people in order to nullify their future.

[00:20:02]Annihilating history will never never legitimize dispossession. The truth will always prevail.

[00:20:11]Mr. President, this court was created to resolve conflicts, not to encourage conflict. Only a political and negotiated solution to a territorial dispute can lay a solid and stable foundation for good neighborliness, cooperation, shared economic development, and the promotion of secure investment in the region.

[00:20:37]Venezuela will never endorse the violation of the Geneva Agreement and international law.

[00:20:46]To validate a ruling that seeks to disregard a legal instrument that is in force and that has been duly deposited with the United Nations would run counter to the international legal order.

[00:20:59]Even if the court were to declare the award invalid, Venezuela would be unable to comply with such a ruling as it would also be nullifying the Geneva Agreement and international law.

[00:21:14]It follows very clearly from this that there is no legal way of recognizing a decision resulting from this process, whatever that may be.

[00:21:26]President, members of the court, this is not an act of disrespect towards this esteemed court. It is an act of unwavering defense of Venezuela's of international law and of the integrity of this court as the main judicial organ of the United Nations.

[00:21:44]My presence before this court demonstrates not only the importance that the territory of Guayana Esequiba holds for us as Venezuelans, it is also clear evidence of the respect we have for the court as an institution.

[00:22:01]Mr. President, Venezuela is ready and prepared to achieve the noble and peaceful purpose of the Geneva Agreement, to reach by all means at its disposal a practical, satisfactory, and mutually acceptable solution for the parties.

[00:22:18]In today's turbulent world, we have reached a historic moment where we can demonstrate that dialogue and negotiation are the path towards coexistence, happiness, and well-being for our peoples. It is time to take a step forward. There's no other way.

[00:22:36]A high-level bilateral meeting organized by key regional stakeholders will, without doubt, be far more productive and effective in achieving that goal.

[00:22:49]Mr. President, members of the court, a country's virtue is not measured by its territorial size, but by its efforts to legitimately defend its sovereignty, its territorial integrity, and its inalienable rights.

[00:23:06]Guyana and Venezuela are called upon by history and by geography to coexist, to understand one another, and to build a shared future.

[00:23:17]Therefore, the only real path forward for this controversy is a return to direct dialogue and the search for creative and mutually beneficial solutions that will allow us to turn a dispute inherited from colonialism into an opportunity for cooperation, joint development, and the well-being of future generations of both peoples.

[00:23:46]Contrary to what has been said, Venezuela has always fully supported the decolonization of Guyana, and it recognized from the beginning the Republic, the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, while still defending its rights over Guayana Esequiba, Venezuela also promoted its development through development programs such as that of Petrocaribe. Unfortunately, Venezuela is still victim of territorial colonialist dis- dispossession, and it is not being receiving repairs for that. The people of Guyana say Venezuela is a peaceful nation, and our common destiny will always always be intertwined.

[00:24:34]Venezuela, however, will never surrender its historical rights and its territorial integrity, the legacy of our ancestors.

[00:24:44]127 years later, we stand up, despite serious aggressions and threats, to defend the territory of Guayana Esequiba.

[00:24:56]We bear on our skin the scars of history and in our souls the tenacity of peoples who learned to defend what is ours, to not give up in the face of difficulty, and to march together towards a future of peace and development. Thank you very much.

[00:25:16]Distinguished President and members of the court, I'd now