Canada maintains call for ‘peaceful, diplomatic’ settlement of Guyana/Venezuela border controversy

The Government of Canada made similar statements last year when Guyana’s President Dr. Irfaan Ali met his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. That meeting was brokered following rising tensions between the two sides after Venezuela pursued a referendum that involved Guyana’s Essequibo region.

The border controversy between Guyana and Essequibo is decades-old. The boundary, as internationally-recognised, was settled in 1899 through an Arbitral Award. It was accepted by Venezuela and Guyana (then British Guiana) until the 1960s as Guyana approached its independence.

A political mechanism known as the 1966 Geneva Agreement was set up to resolve the controversy but after decades of talks failed, the United Nations Secretary General referred the matter to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is the UN’s principal judicial organ. Guyana hopes the Court will provide a final, binding judgement that reaffirms the borders and that the Essequibo region is its own.