Venezuela urged the International Court of Justice on Monday, May 4, 2026, not to uphold what it calls a colonial-era land grab, closing final hearings in a territorial dispute over the oil-rich Essequibo region that Guyana says an 1899 arbitration settled for good.

The court in The Hague heard Venezuela argue that judges should not treat the 1899 Paris arbitration award — which largely sided with Britain and drew the border Guyana still defends — as the foundation of the dispute. Venezuela's position rests on the 1966 Geneva Agreement, signed shortly before Guyana's independence from Britain, which Caracas says shifted the controversy toward direct negotiations and a mutually acceptable political settlement.

"Not the validity or invalidity of the 1899 Arbitral Award, but the pursuit of a mutually satisfactory solution by Guyana and Venezuela," professor Paolo Palchetti told judges as Venezuela opened its final round of arguments Monday.

Venezuela's legal team repeatedly steered the proceedings away from technical disputes over maps and arbitration procedure, framing the case instead as a question of whether borders hammered out during the age of empire should still dictate the future of a region sitting atop enormous oil wealth. The lawyers portrayed the 1899 arbitration not as a neutral legal exercise but as a geopolitical bargain shaped by Britain and the United States while Venezuelan officials watched from the sidelines.

Danae Azaria, an international law professor appearing for Venezuela, walked judges through diplomatic correspondence from the 1890s in which Venezuelan officials warned of British aggression and feared that without American backing, "dangerous consequences would inevitably follow." Venezuela used those records to argue the arbitration unfolded under intense political pressure rather than through the balanced process Guyana says finally settled the border.

Venezuela accepted the 1899 outcome for years before later claiming the deal had been stitched together through imperial pressure and closed-door bargaining. The 1966 Geneva Agreement, signed by Britain, Venezuela and soon-to-be-independent Guyana, promised continued efforts toward a negotiated solution without settling the border itself. The agreement froze the controversy for decades as diplomats, mediators and United Nations officials cycled through failed attempts to break the deadlock.

By 2018, the standoff landed before judges in The Hague after the U.N. secretary-general referred the dispute to the ICJ. Years of jurisdiction battles, written pleadings and emergency requests followed, tied to Venezuela's increasingly assertive moves around Essequibo, including referendums, new maps and state-backed measures reinforcing its claim. In both 2023 and 2025, judges ordered Caracas not to alter the status quo while the case remains pending.

The stakes extend well beyond a normal border case. Huge offshore oil discoveries transformed Guyana into one of the world's fastest-growing economies, while Essequibo has become woven into Venezuelan domestic politics through nationalist campaigns and public votes. Washington has watched closely: last year, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that any Venezuelan move against Guyana or ExxonMobil's oil operations would be "a very bad day" for Caracas.

Politics entered the courtroom directly near the end of Monday's hearing when Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodríguez addressed the judges herself. "I come before this court to bring you the voice of a people who deeply cherish justice, peace and international law," Rodríguez said, while insisting Venezuela never accepted the court's authority to settle the territorial dispute. She tied Caracas' position to a 2023 referendum in which Venezuelan voters backed maintaining the country's historical claim and rejected compulsory judicial settlement.

Guyana warned that Venezuela's actions threatened its territorial integrity and regional stability. Its lawyers argued the Geneva Agreement never erased the 1899 award and accused Caracas of trying to reopen territory long treated as settled through a legal theory developed decades later. Guyana counsel Paul Reichler brushed aside Venezuela's colonial-era narrative, telling judges: "In Texas, they would simply say: 'That dog don't hunt.'"

For practitioners, the case now turns on how the court weighs the 1966 Geneva Agreement against the 1899 award — a question with consequences for post-colonial borders well beyond South America. Moisés Augusto Montiel Mogollón, a Venezuelan international law scholar, said Venezuela portrayed the agreement "as more than a procedural mechanism for dispute resolution, but as a transformative and peace-seeking framework," built around decolonization and negotiated coexistence rather than "winner-takes-all approaches."

With oral proceedings over, the case moves into private deliberations. Judges are expected to spend months working through thousands of pages of historical records, diplomatic correspondence and legal arguments before issuing a final ruling in one of the most politically explosive territorial disputes currently before the world court.