Weekly Report - 05 April 2018 (WR-18-13)

Just ahead of Venezuela’s presidential election on 20 May and of the next polls in Guyana (due in 2019), the longstanding territorial dispute between the two South American neighbours over the Essequibo region may be heating up again. On 29 March Guyana formally submitted the dispute to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague. The Venezuelan government immediately rejected the Guyanese move as “unacceptable, sterile, and unenforceable”: it favours a settlement based on direct negotiations.