GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) — The Guyana Government yesterday said it would support moves that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) be approached to give a legal opinion on the 1899 Arbitral Tribunal Award of its boundary with Venezuela.

“If, for example, as we are suggesting the SG (United Nations Secretary General) puts to the court — ‘give us an opinion on this matter’ — the court could do so without the agreement of Venezuela. If it is, however, that you are asking them to deal with a matter of substance, they would, as I understand, Venezuela’s concurrence will [and] be required,” Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Greenidge told a news conference.

Greenidge said if Guyana gets a legal opinion in its favour it will be internationally persuasive, even if Venezuela rejects it.

“The thing about an opinion in those circumstances — it is only advisory. The value of it to Guyana is that the world will see that a legal exercise having been conducted on Venezuela’s claim is not supported,” he said.

The 1899 Arbitral Tribunal Award is regarded by Guyana as a final settlement of the border dispute with Venezuela claiming the Essequibo.

The issue flared up earlier this year after President Nicolas Maduro issued a decree that includes all the Atlantic waters off the Essequibo coast.

The purported annexation of the waters off Essequibo takes in the oil-rich Stabroek Block, where American oil giant Exxon Mobil in May found a “significant” reserve of high-quality crude oil.

ExxonMobil said the discovery was made in one of the two wells it dug, in the Liza-1 drill site, which realised more than 295 feet of high-quality oil-bearing sandstone.

Greenidge told reporters that Venezuela has been unable to produce any evidence to support its contention that the 1899 Arbitral Tribunal Award was null and void, and that if the ICJ accepts the case and makes a pronouncement, the role of the UN would be based on the legal opinion.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has already dispatched fact-finding missions to Caracas and Georgetown ahead of a decision on whether to give into Guyana’s demands for the controversy over the award to be taken to the ICJ.

Greenidge said that Venezuela seems to prefer a diplomatic approach to resolving the controversy and does not accept the ICJ as a court of competent jurisdiction to address boundary issues.

“Venezuela is seeking now to avoid another court pronouncement because they anticipate, no doubt, that it will be the same as the last and in those circumstances they don’t have leverage.

“Where they have leverage is that they can use military force or, in the course of the exchanges, they can go and try to buy out opinions elsewhere so Venezuela’s explanation is not so much that they are opposed judicial pronouncements, but in that in the case of the border they are not prepared to go to the courts for a resolution of this matter,” he said.