Essequibo

European colonization

Essequibo’s protracted territorial dispute dates from the period of Spanish colonial rule. In the late 15th century, explorer Christopher Columbus observed the Guyanese coast, and Spain subsequently claimed much of the northern part of the continent of South America, including present-day Guyana and Venezuela. Although the Spanish initially claimed the Essequibo region, it was the Dutch who settled the Essequibo valley, set up trading posts in the river basin’s lush land, and established the first settlement in Guyana in 1616. Soon after, they began to import enslaved people to cultivate sugarcane and developed the frontier over the next two centuries.

Control of Guyana shifted several times in the late 18th century, primarily among the British, French, and Dutch. In 1814 Britain acquired Essequibo, along with the regions of Demerara and Berbice, from the Netherlands. However, the treaty under which that land was obtained did not delineate its western boundary, most likely because the border between Spanish and Dutch possessions in the area had never been formally defined. Nonetheless, in 1831 Britain united the three territories to form the colony of British Guiana.

Exploration of British Guiana, the Schomburgk Line, and the origin of the territorial dispute

Meanwhile, neighboring Venezuela, having attained its independence from Spanish rule, asserted its own claim to sovereignty over Essequibo, which Spain had considered to be part of the Captaincy General of Venezuela. In 1835 the British Royal Geographical Society commissioned Robert Hermann Schomburgk to explore British Guiana. In 1839, at the end of his mission, Schomburgk made known his belief that the borders of the colony should be fixed by survey, and in 1841 the British government sent him back to British Guiana to do that. The boundary that he demarcated between British Guiana and Venezuela (the Schomburgk Line) incorporated the Essequibo region within British Guiana. Venezuela quickly disputed Schomburgk’s border, claiming that it encroached on Venezuelan land, which it claimed extended to the Essequibo River. In the decades that followed, the discovery of gold in Essequibo resulted in an influx of British miners and settlers. All the while, the boundary dispute persisted. Negotiations between Britain and Venezuela made little progress, and in February 1887 Venezuela severed diplomatic relations with Britain.

1899 Paris Arbitral Award

During the last quarter of the 19th century, Venezuela sought to enlist support from the United States for its claim to the region under the aegis of the Monroe Doctrine’s prohibition of European intervention in the Western Hemisphere. As the century came to a close, an international tribunal (made up of two U.S. judges, two British judges, and a Russian judge) was established, largely as a result of U.S. influence, to decide the fate of the disputed territory. In 1899 the resulting settlement, the Paris Arbitral Award, gave Venezuela control over parts of the area at the mouth of the Orinoco River, whereas it awarded Britain the land west of the Essequibo River, which amounted to approximately 90 percent of the contested region. Less than satisfied, Venezuela nonetheless ratified the tribunal’s decision.

Explore Britannica Premium!

The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.

SUBSCRIBE

1966 Geneva Agreement

In 1949 the issue heated up again, when a memorandum was made public that suggested that the Russian tribunal leader had coerced the U.S. arbitrators into approving British control of Essequibo. Although some observers questioned the delay in Venezuela’s formal response to this revelation, in 1962 Venezuela declared the 1899 decision invalid, again asserted its sovereignty over the land west of the Essequibo River, and brought its concerns to the United Nations (UN). An agreement in 1966 between Britain and Venezuela that grew out of a UN-orchestrated conference in Geneva committed Venezuela and Guyana (which became party to the agreement after attaining its independence) to efforts to seek a peaceful solution to the dispute and established a mixed commission to facilitate an agreement, but it failed to produce a resolution of the issue within the four years mandated by the agreement. Under the terms of the Geneva Agreement, the issue was then to have been transferred to an international organ or to the UN secretary-general. However, a protocol agreed to by Venezuela and Guyana in 1970 effectively delayed any action on the dispute for 12 years.

In the 1980s the two countries then agreed to allow the secretary-general to pursue a solution to the matter, and in 1990 the first of a series of “good officers” was appointed to facilitate a means for settlement. Negotiations occurred regularly but bore little fruit. In the meantime, Venezuela and Guyana experienced periods of relatively amicable relations, particularly during the rule of Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chávez.

2015 oil discovery

Tensions between Guyana and Venezuela flared again in 2015, when Exxon Mobil Corporation discovered significant oil reserves in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Essequibo in waters that are claimed by both Guyana and Venezuela. Estimates by Guyana’s government indicated that these deposits could hold more than 700 million barrels of oil, worth some $40 billion. The find promised considerable economic potential for Guyana, to that point one of the poorest countries in South America. The oil reserves also represented high economic potential for Venezuela, which, despite possessing its own large oil reserves, was in the midst of an economic collapse resulting from mismanagement of its state-owned oil industry and international sanctions imposed upon it in response to the increasingly authoritarian rule of Pres. Nicolás Maduro. In the wake of Exxon Mobil’s discovery, Maduro revived Venezuela’s claims to the Essequibo region, which beyond its potential oil riches offered possible economic benefits to be derived from hydroelectric power generation, fishing, and tourism.

Appeal to the International Court of Justice

Against this backdrop, in early 2018 UN Secretary-General António Guterres determined that the territorial dispute should be submitted to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), though decisions by the ICJ on such matters can take years. In March of that year Guyana applied to the ICJ, which in December 2020 determined that the matter was within its purview. Venezuela responded by challenging the court’s authority in the dispute, but in an April 2023 decision the ICJ reaffirmed its jurisdiction.

Venezuelan referendum on Guyana Esequiba

Tensions escalated in September 2023, when Guyana held an auction for oil exploration licenses. Maduro then heightened the political brinksmanship by scheduling a consultative referendum, which asked Venezuelans whether the country should reject the ICJ’s jurisdiction in the territorial dispute and incorporate Essequibo as a Venezuelan state to be named Guyana Esequiba. On December 1, 2023, two days before the referendum vote, the ICJ prohibited Venezuela from taking action that would change the status quo in Essequibo. Although voter turnout appeared to be low—notwithstanding the National Electoral Council’s claim that more than half of the electorate had participated—the majority of those who did vote endorsed Venezuela’s claim to sovereignty over Essequibo. Maduro followed with an order for the state oil company to issue extraction licenses for Essequibo and proposed that Venezuela’s National Assembly pass a bill to annex the disputed territory.

A number of political observers argued that Maduro’s preoccupation with the border dispute and the presentation of it as a patriotic imperative was an attempt to distract Venezuelans from their hardships and stoke nationalist solidarity as he faced the possibility of being unseated in the presidential election slated for the latter half of 2024. As the situation intensified and the possibility of military conflict loomed, Maduro and Guyanese Pres. Irfaan Ali met in Kingstown, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, on December 14, 2023, and agreed that their countries would not resort to force against each other and that they would “refrain, whether by words or deeds, from escalating any conflict or disagreement.”