Negotiate the Future, Not the Title

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GBJ Editorial · Guyana–Venezuela

Negotiate the Future, Not the Title

On Venezuela’s appeal at the United Nations, and what belongs at the table

Months before the World Court is expected to rule on the 1899 Award, Caracas has asked Guyana to return to bilateral talks. The Court will decide title to the land. Nearly everything else can be negotiated now.

The Guyana Business Journal · Brooklyn, New York · 25 September 2026

 

On Wednesday, before the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly, Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodríguez appealed to Guyana to return to negotiations under the 1966 Geneva Agreement. She argued that the most enduring agreements arise from bilateral negotiations rather than from external bodies. She noted that she was speaking from the headquarters of international law (UN record; Demerara Waves report).

Rodríguez wore a brooch depicting Venezuela’s map as including Guyana’s Essequibo region, which comprises more than two-thirds of our national territory.

We take the words seriously. We also take the brooch seriously.

Why not simply negotiate?

Begin with what is actually before the Court. Guyana asks the International Court of Justice to declare that the 1899 Arbitral Award is valid and binding, together with the boundary established by that Award and the 1905 Agreement. It also asks the Court to affirm the sovereignty that follows. It does not ask for a new line to be drawn.

A history of failed talks

Guyana has already spent more than half a century pursuing a peaceful resolution through agreed diplomatic arrangements:

• • the Mixed Commission, from 1966 to 1970;

• • the Protocol of Port of Spain (1970–82), which suspended Article IV of the Geneva Agreement for an initial twelve-year period;

• • nearly three decades of the UN Good Offices process, from 1990 through 2017.

In the end, none of it produced a settlement.

The Geneva Agreement anticipated exactly this outcome. Article IV sets out a staged process. If the parties cannot agree on a means of settlement, they refer that choice to an international organ they both accept. Failing agreement even on that organ, the choice passes to the UN Secretary-General, who must select further means if necessary.

On 30 January 2018, the Secretary-General chose the Court. In December 2020, the Court held that it had jurisdiction over the validity of the Award and the related definitive settlement of the land boundary, though not over Guyana’s claims arising from later events. Venezuela did not attend that hearing, although it submitted written material. In April 2023, the Court rejected Venezuela’s preliminary objection. Venezuela has since presented arguments on the merits, including through Ms. Rodríguez herself.

The Secretary-General therefore selected the ICJ route under treaty authority the parties themselves conferred. It is not an external imposition. It is the Geneva Agreement working as written.

It is not an external imposition. It is the Geneva Agreement working as written. — GBJ Editorial

What has changed, and what has not?

The tone has changed, and we welcome it. Gone were the familiar attacks on Washington and on ExxonMobil. In their place came praise for a new US–Venezuela agreement and a stated wish to rebuild relations across South America. A Caracas focused on reconstructing its economy is a better neighbor than a Caracas mobilized around a territorial referendum.

The posture, however, has not yet changed. In December 2023, the Court directed Venezuela to refrain from any action that would modify the prevailing situation in the territory, which Guyana administers and controls. In May 2025, the Court reaffirmed that order and specifically directed Venezuela not to conduct, or prepare to conduct, elections in the disputed territory.

Venezuela nevertheless held a vote on 25 May 2025 to choose a governor and legislators for the “Guayana Esequiba” state it has declared over our territory. The polling took place in a specially created district in Venezuela’s Bolívar state, not in the disputed territory, and the Court has not ruled on whether it breached the order. The intent of the exercise, however, was plain.

A brooch is a small thing. A pattern is not.

So what should be negotiated, and when?

The answer depends on the subject, not the calendar. Title to the land is before the Court, and it should remain there. Nearly everything else can begin now: border security, migration, trade, and practical cooperation along the frontier. Guyana can come to those talks now, in good faith, without conceding anything about its legal position.

The answer depends on the subject, not the calendar. Title to the land is before the Court, and it should remain there. — GBJ Editorial

What comes after the ruling

Other matters will follow the judgment. Demerara Waves reports that a ruling is expected in early 2027, although the Court has not announced a date. If Guyana and Venezuela enter post-judgment talks, maritime delimitation should be a priority, conducted in accordance with international law. No such process or timetable has yet been announced. US Ambassador Nicole Theriot has said Washington is ready to assist maritime-boundary negotiations after a ruling.

For a business audience, the stakes are concrete. ExxonMobil has described a ruling as a potential milestone for the portion of the Stabroek Block held under force majeure. Any renewed exploration there would still require government authorization.

As a result, investors price in uncertainty. A judgment can deliver legal finality, but durable security also depends on compliance and implementation. Investment in roads, ports and pipelines rests on something less visible but indispensable: legal certainty that holds. That means a confirmed land boundary honored on both sides, followed by a maritime boundary both nations recognize and respect.

The challenge

To Caracas: if bilateral agreements truly last longest, the most persuasive proof of good faith is to commit now, before the judgment, to respect it. Guyana will come to every conversation that follows as it always has, as a sovereign equal.

To ourselves, at home and in the diaspora: the controversy has been one of the rare questions on which Guyanese across every political divide have stood together. We must hold that consensus through the judgment and beyond it.

We should also measure our readiness for the day after not only in legal briefs and investment flows, but in the lives of the people of the Essequibo. That means their safety, their schools, clinics and roads, and a meaningful voice in the region’s future, particularly for its Indigenous communities.

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Our objective in The Hague is confirmation of what the 1899 Award settled.

The harder test is to govern, develop and defend the Essequibo in a manner worthy of the people who call it home.

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