by Kristen Ku
BELIZE CITY, Thurs. June 8, 2023
A historic day was marked for Belize on Wednesday, June 7, when its agents submitted a Rejoinder to the Registrar of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is the final written submission in the ICJ proceedings for adjudicating Guatemala’s territorial, insular, and maritime claims.
The Government of Belize announced via press release the submission of Belize’s Rejoinder to the ICJ in The Hague by Belize’s Agents, Ambassadors Assad Shoman and Alexis Rosado, alongside Mariana Verde, Chief Operations Officer in the Office of the Agents, and Catherine Drummond, Legal Counsel.
Their action concludes four years of rigorous work by Belize’s international legal team and the Office of the Agents. Since the written submissions stage has concluded, the court will now be setting a date for the oral hearings.
“Belizeans can be assured that a very strong case has been put forward in defense of Belize’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” stated the government press release.
The major disagreements which underlie the dispute can be traced to the terms of the 1859 Treaty, signed by Britain and Guatemala, which outlined the borders of Belize from the Rio Hondo to the Sarstoon.
However, disagreements arose over Article 7 of the treaty, which stipulated that both nations should make their best efforts to construct a cart road from Guatemala City to the Atlantic coast.
Guatemala claimed that Britain’s failure to build the road violated the treaty, and therefore, it should not be bound by the borders agreed to in the treaty.
Guatemala officially attempted to declare the treaty null and void in 1946, and Britain proposed resolving the issue through the ICJ. However, Guatemala at the time declined the proposal, leading to years of failed negotiations until that country finally embraced the idea of going to court in 2018.
Both countries subsequently carried out a referendum in which the majority of persons who participated, voted in favor of submitting the dispute to the ICJ, allowing the formation of a bipartisan commission to oversee the process.
The 1859 Treaty has been upheld as a legally valid boundary treaty, reinforced by the exchange of letters between Britain and Guatemala in 1931, that acknowledged the border markers established under the treaty.
The decision reached by the ICJ is binding and valid under Article 94 of the United Nations Charter.
The submission of the rejoinder by Belize indicates a significant step towards resolving the long-standing dispute.