The two Venezuelan guys in the TV discussion say they are against Guyana taking the dispute to the World Court. According to them, the issue is not the validity or invalidity of the 1899 agreement; the issue is the 1966 Geneva Agreement which made allowance for certain mechanisms to be used.
When Guyana, Venezuela and Britain signed that 1966 agreement the then opposition leader Cheddi Jagan had warned that Burnham made a big mistake. Speaking in parliament on 17 July 1968, Jagan said: "Why was it necessary for the Government to sign the Geneva Agreement? Why did the British Government which, in our time, said that the matter was closed, agreed to the re-opening of the question at Geneva? Was it not to allow the Venezuelans to keep this question going, to be examined by a Mixed Commission until perhaps another election comes along which the PPP might win, fraud or no fraud?"
Jagan added: "When transfer of power took place [in 1966], the territory’s geographical boundaries which comprise Guyana should have been lodged with the United Nations. This is what should have been done by Britain. But now it would seem that our boundaries are still in a fluid state and the Venezuelans are interpreting this fluidity as they choose by occupying Ankoko and now moving into our territorial waters."
Shridat Ramphal said that the Geneva Agreement was a pre-requisite for Guyana achieving its independence. From Odeen's History of Guyana:
The British Government, as stipulated in the Agreement, would remain as a party to it even after Guyana achieved independence
In the days after the conference concluded, there were intense discussions in the media in Venezuela, the United Kingdom and Guyana on the significance of the Geneva Agreement. Venezuela, for its part, saw the Geneva Agreement as the “reopening” of the border dispute, and Foreign Minister Iribarren Borges said that the agreement actually meant that the 1899 decision would be reconsidered. This position was rebutted by both the British and Guyana Governments who insisted that the controversy was really over the Venezuelan contention that the 1899 Award was null and void, and the Agreement was not aimed at cancelling the Award or revising the boundary.