Venezuelan jurist and congressman Hermann Escarrá. Photo: Últimas Noticias.
Venezuelan congressman Hermann Escarrá does not miss any detail of the century-old controversy over the Essequibo territory, the 159,500 square kilometers in eastern Venezuela that previously appeared on the official Venezuelan map with oblique lines and the inscription “zone under claim.”
So as not to get lost in the details of this territorial claim made by Venezuela, which owns this piece of land, Escarrá has at hand a stack of documents that his assistant passes to him as he cites them during the interview conducted by Últimas Noticias‘ Eligio Rojas.
“Find me the Argyle Declaration there… Have the Geneva Agreement at hand… Give me the Port of Spain Protocol… Mark page nine of the Constitutional Organic Law for the Defense of Guayana Esequiba.”
The title of the documents already indicates the topic to be discussed in the interview. His expertise on this matter was important when he was appointed in the National Assembly as president of the Special Commission for the Defense of the Essequibo Territory and Territorial Sovereignty.
What is the status of the complaint filed by Guyana before the International Court of Justice?
The Court case will continue inexorably. The status is that there was a summons to Guyana, to Venezuela. All of this is within the framework of Guyana’s unilateral claim against Venezuela. And now, a space is opening up, for the presentation of evidence and documents, which could be oral.
—It’s a trial.
It is actually a trial, but in a single instance. There is no appeal. It is decided, and it is final.
Should Venezuela attend these oral hearings, knowing that it does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice?
Well, personally, as a personal opinion, not as a member of parliament, I believe that Venezuela should stick to Delcy Rodríguez’s statement of April 8 in The Hague. We will present the documents, but you have to know that we are not going to recognize the jurisdiction of that International Court.
What exactly did Vice President Delcy Rodríguez say before the International Court of Justice?
On April 8 of this year, she went to the International Court of Justice on behalf of Venezuela. She submited a document entitled The Truth of Venezuela in the Face of Territorial Plunder: Let us Recover the Essequibo. But it is important to read point two. I have it highlighted in yellow.
It says: “The delivery of this document does not imply Venezuela’s consent or recognize the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in the territorial dispute over Essequibo.” And my dear friend, it adds a phrase that I never imagined I would read.
What is that phrase?
“…Nor of the decision that the Court might adopt on this matter.” That is to say, whatever the Court adopts, it is not going to be recognized by Venezuela.
Whose idea was it to take this dispute to the International Court of Justice, thereby disrupting what the 1966 Geneva Agreement dictates on the use of negotiation to resolve this matter?
In 2018, the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, made the decision to give jurisdiction to the International Court of Justice and to allow Guyana to unilaterally sue Venezuela. This violates a principle of public international law, which is the arbitration clause.
What does that clause consist of?
In the international legal order, for us to go to the International Court of Justice, you and I both have to agree and make the request. Because that instance is a voluntary jurisdiction.
How did President Maduro react to this change in rules?
He responded in a letter dated February 25, 2018. Here I have it. See what President Maduro wrote to Guterres. “We are concerned and surprised, and at the same time, I regret the content of your letter… the authority granted to you contravenes the spirit, purpose, and reason of the Geneva Agreement (1966).” Then he adds: “Contrary to what you claim, it does not derive from any framework established by your predecessors, but rather, the figure of good offices emanates expressly from the Geneva Agreement. I want to remind you that Venezuela has historically rejected the method of judicial settlement.”
He rejects the method of judicial agreement and favors what?
He privileges, well, what is called the Bolivarian doctrine or policy of peace, which is dialogue within the framework of the Geneva Agreement. Here in that letter, President Maduro tells Guterres: “Venezuela does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice as mandatory.”
Why does Venezuela not accept the jurisdiction of that Court?
First, it is an issue of Venezuelan tradition because everything we have lost in terms of territory, more than half of our original territory, was due to arbitration and judicial solutions.
For example?
When we lost La Guajira [to Colombia], it was because of that. Here down in the plains, touching the state of Amazonas, it was also because of that. The islands that we have lost were also because of that. So, Venezuela has an aversion to the issue of the International Court. Its position is not to go to a judicial settlement, and with the titles it has, we face this.
Does Guyana not have any deeds over the Essequibo territory?
They have possession of the territory. They are exploiting it, illegally granting concessions, internationally speaking, but the deeds are ours.
What motivates the UN Secretary General to propose this solution to the Guyana-Venezuela controversy?
I think that we have already escaped from the legal aspect because there is nothing legal there. So, we must move away from geopolitical interests to interests of a different nature, which are those that govern the actions of the United Nations.
What interests does António Guterres’ proposal serve?
Some are economic interests, others are political power interests, but there is no legal interest here because the legal system clearly indicates that if there is no arbitration clause, you cannot go to the International Court of Justice. You can go to conciliation, to investigation, to agreement, to a third party in good faith. You can seek other means, to good offices, but not that option, because it requires the parts to have a mutual agreement, which is the arbitration clause.
And there is the option of a consultative referendum, proposed by the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, and materialized on December 3, 2023.
What does this referendum reveal? Firstly, more than 10 million people voted against the fraudulently imposed line of the Paris Arbitration Award (1899). In point two, it states that the Geneva Agreement is the only valid legal instrument to resolve this dispute. In point three, it says that the people of Venezuela do not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice.
Point four is very important because it denies and rejects Guyana’s claim to unilaterally dispose of waters that are not delimited, and yet Guyana is granting concessions.
What is the status of these concessions granted by Guyana to oil companies?
For me all of this is illegal, Venezuela will have to sue for damages at the appropriate time. In fact, I was in favor of requesting measures from the International Court of Justice since that body asks us for titles. That’s fine, but I do not want a provisional measure so that you have illegal international exploitation granted by someone who has no title and, in addition, on waters that are yet to be delimited.
To file a lawsuit before which authority?
There are various instances. One is the courts that exercise what is now called universal justice, as they did with Augusto Pinochet, an international arrest warrant. It is universal justice. And the second is going to the United Nations Security Council, as I said before.
Have those oil companies to which Guyana granted concessions in a sea yet to be delimited approached President Maduro?
Not really. I do not have that level of information. Perhaps at another level of government in the Executive. Not at the parliamentary level.
It is ideal for these companies to approach Venezuela, which owns that territory. Is that so?
Of course. And above all, we must understand each other. You are illegally exploiting resources that belong to Venezuela and, in the best of cases, in disputed areas. So, how do you accept the concession and also exploit it? I think that in the end, they will seek agreements with Guyana and Venezuela. Businessmen are after capital. They are after investment. Their goal is different from ours; ours is the territorial space and sovereignty.
On October 3, 125 years passed since the dispossession of the Essequibo territory with the Paris Arbitration Award. What does that document contain?
It is a fraudulent act. We have reached 125 years since the dispossession to which we were subjected by the Arbitration Award. It is one of the most serious and fraudulent acts that has occurred against Venezuela.
Why so serious?
Venezuela had been demanding, since the times of the Liberator Simón Bolívar, respect for that area that forms part of Venezuelan territorial integrity. In fact, Bolívar at one point asked his representative in London and his personal secretary Revenga (José Rafael) to tell the Queen (of England) that these English colonists could not continue with their anarchic behavior because they were separating themselves from the legal regime of the then Gran Colombia.
What was England’s reaction to the Liberator’s claim?
From then on, pressure came from both sides, both from Venezuela and the United Kingdom, which considered these lands as theirs due to treaties with Holland and Spain and that they had no reason to give up that territory.
And what does Venezuela reply?
Venezuela says that this territory appears in the maps of the Captaincy General of 1777. It is from the Captaincy General, the first title we have, that we are saying that the territory of Guayana Esequiba is ours.
Are there other titles that give Venezuela sovereignty over that Essequibo territory?
There are other titles as well. In 1845, a treaty was signed between the Kingdom of Spain and Venezuela, recognizing Venezuelan independence from Spain. In that treaty, the presence of the province of Guayana is specified very clearly, and it also appears in the Constitution of 1811 and the first independence movements of Venezuela. Hence the issue of the new star of Guayana and Angostura [in the Venezuelan flag, modified by President Hugo Chávez].
Venezuela Condemns Guyana’s Cynical Statement on Essequibo (+1899 Paris Arbitral Award)
We already have two documents that recognize Venezuela’s ownership of the Essequibo Guayana.
More recently, the Washington Treaty of 1897 was produced. In that treaty, there was an agreement between the empires of that time, England and the United States, to enter into arbitration on the situation of Venezuela. The bases of the arbitration were established, and the presence of any Venezuelan as arbitrator was flatly denied.
Additional details
• “In 1899, the United States and England established an arbitration tribunal at the Orsay Palace (Paris) under the presidency of Fiodors Martins and arbitrators Merville Fuller, David Brewer, Rusell Quiloven, and Richard Collins, without the presence of any Venezuelan arbitrator.”
• “After a little more than 50 meetings, the arbitration award was issued—the product of concussion, the influence of empires, and very far from the law. This Paris Arbitration Award is null and void because every arbitration award must have a statement of reasons. They did not do this, they did not justify their ruling, they simply decided.”
• “Due process was not followed in producing that ruling. How can you decide on my territory, and I cannot appoint a Venezuelan lawyer to be there as an arbitrator? Great Britain had no deed and then applied the de facto uti posseditis juri principle: if I dominate that territory, it is mine.”
• “In the 1960s, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Marcos Falcón Briceño made a claim, and the United Nations decided that the British and Venezuela should meet. From that meeting, the Geneva Agreement was born (17/2/1966), a treaty that began by not recognizing the 1899 Paris Arbitration Award.”
(Últimas Noticias) by Eligio Rojas
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SF
