Despite the megabucks being spent by our Government and our disingenuous” friends” to brainwash and railroad the electorate to vote “Yes to the ICJ,” the most recent polls still indicate that the overwhelming majority of voters will vote “No” in the April 10 referendum.

Nonetheless, logic indicates that our adversaries will continue to do all in their power to ensure that a “Yes” vote prevails in the upcoming referendum. At the local level, political fortunes and aspirations for national hegemony are at stake and on the international plane, superpower foreign policy objectives. Also, there is strong evidence to suggest that the financial interests of important multinational companies committed to the unbridled harvesting of our valuable natural resources in the disputed area are on the line.

So, as the deadline fast approaches, our adversaries have, in a desperate attempt to turn the tide of public sentiment to favor their position, rolled out a hoary blast from the past in the form of a legal opinion from Stephen Schwebel, a 90-year-old retired judge basking in the twilight of his life. To maximize this effort they have skillfully framed twelve questions to this co-author of the 2001 Legal Opinion on Guatemala’s Territorial Claim to Belize, and extracted answers to these from his written opinion.

I will now list each of these questions and the answers provided followed by a pertinent comment so that you may draw your own unbiased conclusions on their merit based on facts and logic.

Question:  Is the legal opinion as determinative today as it was in 2001?

Answer: In my view, the legal opinion is as valid and dispositive today as it was in 2001. There have been no developments in international law that questions or affects the conclusions of that opinion. Indeed, there have been judgements and advisory opinions at the ICJ that sustain the position in the legal opinion.

Comment: No one is contending that there has been any development in international law that questions or affects the conclusions of the 2001 legal opinion. The relevant contention here is that going to court under the 2008 Special Agreement boundary treaty, unlike the 1859 treaty, will request that the court determine, “any and all legal claims by Guatemala against Belize to land and insular territories and to any maritime areas pertaining to these territories, to declare the rights therein of both Parties, and to determine the boundaries between their respective territories and areas”.

These instructions to the court significantly enhance Guatemala’s chances of obtaining Belizean territory and rights over our sovereignty. The answer given misleadingly sidesteps this most determinative issue and therefore bears no relevance to our current situation.

Question: Is Belize responsible for any breach of the 1859 treaty, for example Article 7?

Answer: Any obligation which Britain might have which it denies towards Guatemala for any alleged breach of the treaty does not devolve on Belize. Belize is not responsible for consequence of any breach of Article 7 of the 1959 treaty, even assuming that the UK could be held responsible. Belize has clear and unencumbered title by law to the territory, whose boundaries with Guatemala are set out in the 1859 treaty.

Comment: There has been no disagreement with the opinion expressed in the 2001 Legal Opinion that Guatemala’s breach of Article 7 does not devolve on Belize and that therefore, Belize should not be responsible for the consequence of this breach. This is precisely why it is so surprising that our negotiators voluntarily decided to endorse Article 2 of the Special Agreement Treaty.

This endorsement obliges Belize to assume responsibility for this breach of agreement claim against the British and simultaneously empowers the court to compensate Guatemala for this, or any and all of  their three centuries of claims that the court may sustain, by awarding them Belizean territory and rights.

Interestingly, such rights were most likely articulated in the Belize Government’s endorsed 1981 Heads of Agreement. Whether Guatemala’s claim against the Brits, or any legal claims they present, will be upheld and territory ceded by the ICJ as compensation to Guatemala can only be determined (if the claim is taken to the ICJ) by the currently serving ICJ judges, and no one else.

Question: Does the Maritime Areas act hurt Belize’s case?

Answer: Belize did not give up any rights to any part of its maritime areas assured by UNCLOS, nor did Guatemala gain any such rights.

Comment: This is probably true, but it nevertheless indicates to the court, Belize’s proclivity to bend over backwards to please Guatemala and our failure to tie up loose ends. Needless to say, this may have a psychological effect on the judges when passing judgement.

Question/Observation: Judge Stephen Schwebel notes implausibly that some people say the 1992 joint statement rubbishes the 1859 treaty.

 Answer: Far from prejudicing Belize’s case, the 1992 joint statement significantly sustains that case. It was used to good effect in Belize’s’ legal presentation to the panel of facilitators at the OAS on May 22, 2015, and can be used to similar effect at the ICJ.

Comment: To my knowledge, no one has categorically contended that the 1992 joint statement rubbishes the 1859 treaty. What has been claimed is that the 1992 joint statement signified that Belize agreed to conclude a new boundary treaty with Guatemala to establish clearly defined borders between both countries. This, of course, implies that the borders established by the 1859 treaty are not considered by both countries to have been clearly defined.

Needless to say, the 1859 treaty did in fact establish clearly defined borders with Guatemala, even though from Garbutt Falls to the Mexican frontier was not accurately delineated.

This joint statement prompted the international media to conclude that Belize had joined Guatemala in invalidating their shared international boundaries and Google Earth to replace the solid line indicating an international boundary with a dotted line indicating divisions within a single country.

This is exactly the strategy Guatemala and the OAS had devised to promote Guatemala’s cause. So it is not at all surprising that Judge Schwebel opined, “It was used to good effect in Belize’s’ legal presentation to the panel of facilitators at the OAS on 22 May 2015, and can be used to similar effect at the ICJ.”

Question: Does the Special Agreement refute the 1859 boundaries and allow the ICJ to draw different boundaries?

Answer: I am satisfied that the Special Agreement whose final wording was advised and approved by Sir Elihu Lauterpacht and other distinguished international lawyers is perfectly suitable to protect Belize’s position at the ICJ. I also understand that there are those who purport to interpret the request to the court stated in Article 2 of the Special Agreement to determine the boundaries between their respective territories and areas as meaning that Belize is thereby questioning the existence of the borders established by the 1859 treaty. Such an interpretation is, on the face, bizarre and unconvincing.

Comment: Saying that the Special Agreement is perfectly suitable to protect Belize’s position at the ICJ does not address the fact that the Special Agreement boundary treaty, in accordance with Article 59 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, supersedes the almost ironclad previous boundary treaty and makes the immovable boundaries established by the 1859 treaty, movable at the discretion of the ICJ.

Furthermore, to my knowledge, no one is questioning the existence of the borders established by the 1859 treaty. What is being questioned is the legal validity of their present location. Also, concerning the contribution of Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, it should be noted that the first loyalty of most Englishmen, and especially nobles, is to the Crown. And we do know the British position on this dispute, don’t we?

Question: Can the 2005 Confidence Building Measures be interpreted to mean that Belize is questioning the 1959 treaty borders?

Answer: It is abundantly clear from the terms of the 2005 framework agreement that Belize fully reserves it rights to sovereignty over all its territory and there is no way  that the agreement or the confidence building measures can be used to suggest that Belize compromised its sovereignty or rubbished the 1859 treaty by agreeing to those measures.

Comment: Our take on this was inspired by Guatemala’s foremost legal expert, Gustavo Adolfo Orellana Portillo, who is the Assad Shoman equivalent for Guatemala. He wrote: “I consider that this agreement is a success for Guatemala because the Belizean Government itself has acknowledged that a boundary line marked by countries by mutual agreement does not exist yet, and that, in consequence, a territorial dispute yet remains to be resolved. Right before entering into the Confidence Building Measures, the Government of Belize had sustained that its boundaries were defined by that established by the Anglo-Guatemalan Convention of 1859”.

“But the fact that they are content to accept setting up of the Adjacency Line means that Belize recognized that this is not the international boundary line between both countries, which will be taken into account by the International Court of Justice at the moment of issuing its judgment”. Needless to say, this is a document that the ICJ judges are well aware of.

Question: Can the ICJ judges be biased in favor of Guatemala because of its friendship with the USA?

Answer: I served as a judge of the ICJ from 1981 to 2000 as vice president ‘94 to ‘97, and as president from ‘97 to 2000. I can state with confidence that such concerns are unfounded. The 15 judges elected to the court by the general assembly and security counsel of the UN from all regions of the world are persons of the highest moral character. Their collective judgement will not be determined by supposed friendly relations between Guatemala and any third nation.

Comment: A lot may have changed since this distinguished gentleman served as president of the ICJ almost 20 years ago. Interestingly, the integrity of the ICJ judges has been recently questioned, as some have been found moonlighting on the job. Political interferences have also been cited by one judge who recently resigned from a similar organ of the United Nations. This may well be only the visible tip of the iceberg. These people are only men, and as such, are subjected to the same shortcomings of us all.

Question: Can Guatemala simply choose not to comply with the ICJ judgement?

Answer: I should note that of the many territorial disputes adjudged by the ICJ all have been complied with, or are being complied with. Furthermore, as stated in paragraph 29 of Article 94 of the UN charter, [it] requires the Security Council to give effect to the judgement of the court.

Comment: In order to correctly assess the merit of this answer, we need to consider the following questions. Are the ICJ decisions on the territorial disputes concerning Palestine and Israel complied with, or in the process of being complied with? Are those concerning Russia’s annexation of the Crimea Peninsula in the process of being complied with? How about President Trump’s recent decision to recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel? And there are many others, like China’s rejection of the court’s ruling on the South China Sea, which have not been complied with and are not in the process of being complied with.

Also consider these facts: even if the ICJ judgement favors Belize, the only arm of the United Nations that can enforce its judgements is the Security Council. The composition of this organ of the UN includes five permanent member countries, all of which have the power to prevent the enforcement of any ICJ judgement by simply exercising their veto.

Of those five, there are three that we know of who definitely favor Guatemala over Belize. These are the United States, Great Britain and mainland China— since unlike Guatemala, we have supported Taiwan in preference to mainland China. If any one of these countries decides to exercise its veto, the Security Council will be powerless to enforce any UN resolution to force Guatemala to comply with the court’s decision. And we well know Guatemala’s track record of disrespecting UN decisions that displease them.

They have ignored, with impunity derived from the acquiescence of the OAS and our disingenuous “friends” who, in reality, run things on the international plane, the confidence- building measures as evidenced by their military occupation of the Sarstoon. They moved their embassy to Jerusalem in defiance of the United Nations, disrespected the UN resolutions on our territorial integrity, and more recently expelled the United Nations anti-corruption personnel after having endorsed the anti-corruption measures.

Question: Does the recent ICJ opinion on Chagos affect Belize’s case?

Answer: This case concerns the meaning and scope of the principle of self-determination. The court recalls that the right to self-determination of a people concerned is defined by reference to the entirety of the non-self-governing territory.

Comment: The point here is simply to emphasize the merit of an Advisory Opinion.

Question: Do Guatemala’s recent actions at the Sarstoon prejudice Belize’s case at all?

Answer: No, it is enough to know that nothing occurring after the signing of the Special Agreement may be used to favor Guatemala against Belize in a court of Law. Belize’s case at the ICJ can in no way be affected by the reported activities of Guatemala in the Sarstoon.

Comment: The Jamaican international law luminary, Professor Stephen Vascianne, who gave his legal opinion to the Bar Association, had a different view. He noted that the activities of the territorial volunteers and the alleged diplomatic notes of protest were significant factors in favor of Belize against whatever benefits Guatemala may derive from their actions of in the Sarstoon.

Question: So Guatemala refuses to sign a Sarstoon protocol; can Belize stop its illegal actions at the Sarstoon?

Answer: If the referendum approves the submission of the dispute to the ICJ, it would be open to Belize to apply to the court for the issuance of binding provisional measures to direct Guatemala to cease and desist from its actions on the Sarstoon and to require Guatemala to respect the terms of the 1859 treaty and Guatemala’s own acceptance of the Sarstoon boundary by word and deed for some 150 years. The prospect of the court approving such an application by Belize is substantial.

Comment: All that is true. However, it is misleading, as this is not the only path we may choose to have the ICJ direct Guatemala to cease and desist from its actions on the Sarstoon. Significantly, we could bypass the referendum completely and immediately apply directly to the United Nations Security Council under Chapter 7, Article 39, to halt the aggressive occupation of the Sarstoon by Guatemala. All we would need to do so is the political will of our Government.

Question: What are the prospective chances of Belize and Guatemala at the ICJ?

Answer: On the basis of international law and the evidence considered, Belize has good title to all its territory, including its islands and islets of the mainland. The claim to Belize by the republic of Guatemala is without merit and in our opinion, would be regarded as such by the ICJ.

Comment: The burning question here is what new evidence has been considered that is different from what was considered when they wrote the 2001 Legal Opinion? I make this point because in the case of the recent legal opinion given by Professor Stephen Vascianne to the Bar Association, we were told that he was instructed not to factor in the effect of the “any and all legal claims” as articulated in the Special Agreement Treaty.

Personally, I would find judge Schwebel’s opinion to be more credible if I knew exactly what new and pertinent current evidence, like the Special Agreement Treaty, he actually considered in formulating his opinion. Also, I would have found an opinion not emanating from an American who is a former State Department employee to have been more comforting.

Furthermore, in my opinion, it is an insult to reason for anyone to opine, given the enormous quantity of unknowns in this case, that they can categorically predict how the judges will decide.

In conclusion, I believe the only solution to the Guatemalan dispute Belizeans should justifiably be asked to endorse by referendum is one that they definitively know the terms thereof, and are at liberty to then decide whether or not they are willing to accept the proposed conditions.

Giving up our fundamental right to accept or reject an unknown and most likely, under the present circumstances, unpalatable ICJ determined solution, as a “Yes” vote in this referendum implies, will most likely be found unacceptable to most voters.

Finally, our appointment with history is now upon us. Each individual must decide if he or she will, or will not, yield to the superlative mind control pressure being applied by the powers that be. Remember that the record shows that we have been repeatedly deceived by those who patently believe that the good of the few outweighs the good of the many.

Thus, beloved, do not be misled by this frigid blast from the past.  On April 10 you may vote “Yes”, as our enemies suggest, to supposedly lay the “unbearable” claim to rest— by ceding Guatemala our best. Or you may vote “No” to remain with the Jewel we know.

So clearly bro— “NO” is the way to go!