JURIDICAL SETTLEMENT IS INCONSISTENT WITH THE TRADITIONAL POSITION OF GUYANA
June 11, 2015 | By KNews | Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source
The idea of a juridical settlement of the border dispute with Venezuela has come as a big surprise, especially emanating from the new government.
Just before the PPP/C demitted office it expressed its frustration with the Good Officer Process instituted under the Geneva Convention. It stated that it would move towards a juridical settlement of this dispute.
That position was most likely influenced by commercial interests. These commercial interests want a legal settlement of the dispute so that their investments would not be jeopardized.
A legal settlement may have been acceptable to Suriname, but there is no reason to believe that it will be acceptable to Venezuela. For one, Suriname is not a major oil producing nation. It may have been keen to agree to go to arbitration over its maritime dispute with Guyana because it too may have seen the practical benefits to its exploration activities by having its maritime boundaries delimited.
Venezuela is a different kettle of fish. Venezuela is a major oil producing nation. It not only has oil but it is also the largest exporter of oil to the United States of America. It therefore is not likely to be inclined to go the route of a legal settlement of this dispute.
The previous government must have overlooked this fact when it said that it wanted to move towards a juridical of the dispute with Venezuela.
Based on reports on Demerara Waves, an online local news service, it does seem as if the new APNU+AFC administration is on the same wavelength and may be contemplating a similar move towards a legal settlement.
The very idea of a juridical settlement of the dispute is however inconsistent with the line that Guyana has traditionally taken. This line is that the border issue was conclusively settled by the Arbitral Award of 1899.
Now, legally, if you accept that there is no dispute over the border and that the issue was already definitively settled in 1899, then you cannot be moving to the courts to ask for a legal ruling on the legality of the claim by the Venezuela. This is a contradiction.
If you believe there is no dispute, it is not for you move towards a judicial settlement; it is for the other side to do this because as far as you are concerned the other side has no valid claim.
By moving towards a juridical settlement, you are in fact conceding that there is a dispute between the sides which needs to be settled. You are not at all asserting that there was a prior legal settlement in 1899 which was conclusive.
Guyana therefore has to tread carefully lest it be seen as conceding that there is indeed a case to be defended or answered.
But the situation gets more complicated. If Guyana is to move towards a judicial settlement, it will have to do so under the auspices of the Geneva Convention which as signed just before Independence and which the PNC government has consistently denied, amounted to a reopening of the border controversy.
Now if under the grievance settlement mechanism of the Geneva Convention there is provision for going to judicial adjudication, it effectively means that the Geneva Accord makes accommodation for the judicial determination of the validity of the Venezuelan claim.
In effect, therefore, what this position would mean is that the Geneva Convention signed by Burnham makes provision for the simultaneous settling of the border dispute. But since the border dispute can only be settled if it is reopened, then this will mean that the Geneva Convention effectively makes provision for the reopening of the Venezuelan claim, something that the Guyana authorities have denied since the Geneva Agreement was signed.
Guyana therefore must tread carefully in this matter. It needs to go back to the drawing board and rethink its options.