Second leg of ICJ exercise should take no more than three and half years – Greenidge clarifies

Dec 27, 2020 News

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Guyana/Venezuela border case…

Kaieteur News – Following the ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that it has jurisdiction to hear Guyana’s case on the border controversy with Venezuela, the Government’s Advisor on Borders, Carl Greenidge, has sought to put on record that he does not expect the court to take more than two to three and a half years to issue a judgment.
The official thought it prudent to have this matter cleared up since it has been reported in some sections of the media that the judgment on the border controversy could take as long as close to a decade to be handed down.
To this, the former Foreign Secretary said that Guyana would certainly not want to give the Court the impression that it would expect the exercise to take such an inordinately long time or that it would be comfortable with such a delay, especially if the other party, Venezuela, does not participate in the hearings.
Greenidge said: “I do not think that the second leg of the ICJ exercise should take more than two to three and a half years. Only Wednesday last, in the course of a presentation on: ‘A public Discourse on the Guyana -Venezuela Controversy’, I shared a listing of the 20 or so ICJ cases on territorial disputes since 2000.” He added: “The average time between the lodging of the complaint and the decision by the Court was 4.9 years. As might be expected, the actual time taken is a function of the complexity of the case and, of course, whether or not it is contested.”
Expounding further, Greenidge noted that Guyana’s application was filed on March 29, 2018. On the foregoing basis alone, he said there is no reason to expect another decade of deliberations or pleadings. The Advisor on Borders said it is true that some cases have taken as long as nine years to be completed…however, Guyana is not at the commencement of the process. “We are already two and a half years into it,” the former Minister stressed.
Greenidge said what the government now know is that the case management will take place on January 15th, 2021 where the Court will then decide on the time to be allocated for the different elements of the hearing – presentation by the two sides and responses then deliberation by the judges. Greenidge stressed that none of these elements could take a year each and if Venezuela continues to abstain from participation, at least two elements will be suppressed.

CONFUSION ON DESIGNATIONS
Based on subsequent media reports on the ICJ’s recent ruling, Greenidge also thought it necessary to clarify the confusion regarding designations in the case. In that respect, Greenidge said it should be noted that the December 18th hearing and the ICJ hearings to follow are part of a multi-stage political and diplomatic as well as legal process. He explained that Guyana’s teams for which the agent is responsible, reflects this multi-disciplinary reality.
He said that the effort to definitively resolve the controversy was set in train in 2015 at the meeting between former President David Granger and Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro with former United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon.
He noted that the latter first called for a last effort at ‘dialogue’ between the two states. Following preliminary exchanges, the Guyana and Venezuela Governments agreed, with different degrees of enthusiasm, to the SG’s concrete proposal, termed “enhanced mediation” under the aegis of the SG’s Personal Representative, Ambassador Dag Nylander.
When in 2016, the Cabinet decided to field a team to pursue that initiative, Greenidge noted that Guyana established a multi-disciplinary, multi-sector, multi-national team, called the Advisory Committee (AC), to undertake the necessary preparation and representation.
Greenidge stressed that only Guyana’s “successful” navigation of the hazards posed by this process over the two subsequent years ensured that the matter would reach the Court.
That was, in other words, the single most important step in the entire process to date.
Within that AC, Greenidge explained that most of that work was carried by the Minister of Foreign Affairs’ team of diplomats and experienced former negotiators, supported by some six largely young Ministry of Foreign Affairs lawyers, and its Maritime Consultant as well as Professor Philippe Sands Q.C. and especially Professor Payam Akhavan from the International team of Lawyers.
In 2018, Kaieteur News understands that the 2015/6 Advisory Committee (AC), in order to deal with the June 30th Hearing of the ICJ, was reinforced with a team of international lawyers.
Greenidge said: “The lawyers are part of our national team and the lodging of the memorial and discussions of the case with the Registrar involved both lawyers and other representatives and were led by me. Guyana’s Agent to the ICJ is Carl B. Greenidge. Both Stabroek News and Kaieteur News prefer to designate me as the Co-Agent, notwithstanding attempts to have this corrected.”
The advisor stressed that agent is not required to be a lawyer and is responsible for overseeing the preparations, finalizing strategy, liaising with the Government to ensure that it is informed of the needs for successful prosecution of the process and ensuring that the AC is familiar with Government policy, for example.
Sir Shridat Ramphal S.C, as one of the two co-agents is responsible for coordinating the inputs of the legal counsels and advocates.
Greenidge also noted that the other co-agent is Ambassador Audrey Waddell, CCH…a former Director-General of the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
He has been coordinating the domestic team which includes Cedric Joseph, CCH; Dr Barton Scotland, CCH, S.C; Attorney Ralph Ramkarran S.C, and PPP/C’s, Gail Teixeira.

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