WITH Venezuela showing no signs of walking back from its planned December 3 referendum on matters relating to the Essequibo border controversy, Guyana has applied to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, seeking to block the planned vote.
Today, the ICJ responded in a statement indicating November 14 as the day that special hearing will be held. Guyana’s oral arguments will be heard during the morning of November 14 while Venezuela’s will be heard in the afternoon.
In its October 30 2023 filing to the ICJ, Guyana told the court that the purpose of Venezuela’s referendum is to obtain responses that would support that Spanish-speaking country’s decision to abandon the current proceedings before the ICJ and instead resort to unilateral measures to deal with the controversy. Those measures, the ICJ noted based on Guyana’s submission, would be to annex and integrate all of the Essequibo region into Venezuela.