How to understand it? As for Guiana Esequiba, Venezuela will not accept fraudulent deals

Published at: 15/05/2026 05:00 PM

“Nothing that has been presented today contradicts the rights of Venezuela; nor has it been demonstrated that there is any other version other than that the territory of Guiana Esequiba is Venezuelan,” these statements by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yván Gil, summarize the request that our country has been demanding since 1966.

Venezuela responded to the call of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, the Netherlands, in response to the appeal invoked by Guyana to dispute the Venezuelan claim on the Essequibo, despite being clear that the ICJ is not an instance to settle these differences and that only the Geneva Agreement is valid for this purpose.

Venezuela's just claim is recognized within the United Nations (UN) through the signing of the Geneva Agreement of 1966, an international treaty that governs with all its regulatory force the containment of our Guiana Esequiba. This document is the only valid and current legal instrument to resolve the dispute, since it invalidates the definitive nature of the Paris Arbitration Award of 1899, which it qualifies as null and void.

Given the assertion of the representatives of our country, it is important to ask ourselves the question: Why does Venezuela accept the Geneva Agreement and not the Paris Arbitration Award ?

The Geneva Agreement, signed on February 17, 1966, a few months before Guyana's independence, is a treaty in which the United Kingdom as a colonial power and Venezuela recognize that there is a territorial dispute.

The objective of this agreement was to achieve a practical and satisfactory solution for both parties through friendly negotiations and upon signing it, all parties accepted that the Paris Arbitration Award in 1899 had not definitively resolved the problem, opening a new phase of peaceful resolution.

Faced with this, Venezuela exposed the invalidity of the Paris Arbitration Award, and argues that that arbitration was a procedural fraud where there was a compromise between British and Russian judges, leaving our nation without real representation.

Venezuela relies on the Geneva Agreement of 1966 as its main legal shield against Guyana's claims. This document is not just another treaty, but proof that the territorial conflict is still open and that the 1899 Award is not valid.

Among the evidence presented by the Venezuelan State that evidences the nullity of the Paris Arbitration Award, is the Severo Mallet-Prevost Memorandum, published in 1949, after the death of Mallet-Prevost, in the Journal: The American Journal of International Law. Vol. 43, No. 3, New York , July 1949; which revealed political compromises to give strength to the Laudo in this illegal negotiation.

What was exposed in that memorandum was behind the scenes of a procedural injustice. Severo Mallet-Prevost was an American lawyer who was part of the national defense in the arbitration of the Paris Award in 1899. Upon his death in 1948, he left instructions for a document to be published in which he explained how the sentence was framed.

His revelation was the driving force that allowed Venezuela to denounce to the UN in 1962 that the Paris Arbitration Award was not a legal decision, but a political settlement.

Mallet-Prevost stated that there was a secret pact between the president of the court, the Russian Fyodor Martens, who did not act as an impartial judge. Martens pressured American referees defending Venezuela to accept a border line already drawn in favor of Great Britain.

According to the memorandum, Martens threatened American judges that, if they did not vote in favor of the British proposal, he would join the two British judges in taking even more territory from Venezuela, including the mouths of the Orinoco River.

Attorney Mallet-Prevost also stated that the final map was not based on historical or legal evidence, but on a previous diplomatic agreement between the British Empire and Russia to secure their own geopolitical interests.

The importance of this document is because it revealed the evidence of defects of invalidity; that in international law, an award is void if it is demonstrated that there was coercion, corruption by a judge or excess of power, that is, in the Mallet-Prevost memorandum it provided proof of that coercion and lack of impartiality.

Venezuela was able to demonstrate to the international community that it was not trying to break a treaty as an act of lack of seriousness, but that it was demanding justice in the face of historic fraud. It was then, according to this complaint based on the memorandum that the United Kingdom agreed to sit down and negotiate again, culminating in the signing of the Geneva Agreement of 1966.

That a high-level lawyer such as Mallet-Prevost, years after the trial, trusts and in a document published after his death, that the judges did not read the laws, but that they divided the territory in a closed room for political interests; morally and legally invalidated the 1899 Award for Venezuela, converted This is an embarrassment that Guyana today tries to ignore, trying to base its defense on an act that clearly lacks all seriousness.

Venezuela maintains its territorial defense in the spaces that are necessary, even if they are not adequate; and in the words of the President in Charge, Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela will not renounce its history or its legitimate rights, expressly recognized and preserved in the Geneva Agreement, because Guyana seeks, in a unilateral and opportunistic way, to redefine the controversy. For us, Guiana Essequiba is not reduced to mere economic and commercial interests, it is part of our inalienable historical morality.”

AMELYREN BASABE/Mazo News Team