A court in The Hague weighs the fate of a 19th-century colonial border—a decision with consequences reaching far beyond South America. KEHINDE ADEGOKE reports.
This week, fifteen judges in The Hague take on what may be the most significant boundary case of our century: ruling on the Guyana-Venezuela dispute over 160,000 square kilometres of resource-rich territory. As a result, this decision could affect not only South America, but borders around the world.
This case demands Africa’s attention not simply as an observer, but as a participant in a story that intimately involves its history and future.
The reason is clear: the central legal question—whether a boundary drawn by colonial powers in 1899 through arbitration is permanently valid—extends beyond South America. It strikes at the core of African sovereignty. The ICJ’s answer could set a precedent for Africa’s territorial disputes, all rooted in boundaries drawn long ago by others.
WHAT IS ACTUALLY BEING DECIDED IN THE HAGUE
The hearings mark the most consequential phase yet in a case Guyana filed in March 2018 seeking a final, binding ruling that the Arbitral Award of October 3, 1899 — which established the boundary between what was then the colony of British Guiana and Venezuela — remains valid under international law.
Guyana told the court the dispute concerns about 70% of its total territory—roughly 160,000 square kilometres of resource-rich jungle, near major offshore oil deposits.
According to Hugh Todd, Guyana’s Foreign Minister, the dispute is existential for his country. He argued before the court that Venezuela aims to take more than 70 per cent of Guyana’s land—territory recognised as Guyana’s for more than 126 years.
Venezuela’s case is just as stark. Its representative, Samuel Reinaldo Moncada Acosta, told the court that Venezuela’s historical rights are inalienable and will be defended peacefully. Venezuela claims the 1899 award was tainted by collusion between British and Russian arbitrators, and that a 1966 agreement, concluded before Guyana’s independence, renders it invalid.
The ICJ must decide if a colonial-era arbitral award, respected for decades, remains binding—or if it can be challenged and overturned as circumstances change.
For Africa, therefore, this is more than a theoretical discussion; it is an existential issue.
THE BERLIN CONFERENCE AND THE BOUNDARY THAT NEVER ASKED
To understand why this case matters to Africa, one must examine how its borders were drawn.
In 1884–1885, European powers met in Berlin and divided Africa into colonial possessions. In just fourteen weeks, diplomats drew lines that split ethnic homelands, divided communities, and separated those who shared language and culture, forging new nations. No African leaders participated; their voices were unheard.
Today’s African map reflects that process: 54 nations with borders mostly inherited from European colonial decisions. These borders—imposed with little local knowledge or consent—often ignored geography and culture.
Nigeria’s borders, drawn by British colonial administrators, split the Yoruba from kin in Benin, the Hausa-Fulani from related groups in Niger, and created a southern Cameroon boundary that has long been disputed and litigated. The 2002 ICJ Bakassi Peninsula case, in which Nigeria lost land to Cameroon based on colonial-era agreements, stands as a direct example.
Nigeria followed that ruling. It remains deeply controversial.
THE PRECEDENT EVERY AFRICAN BORDER DISPUTE IS WATCHING
The ICJ’s ruling in Guyana v. Venezuela will address one of the most sensitive questions in international territorial law: what is the legal status of a boundary established by a colonial-era arbitral process — and under what circumstances, if any, can it be revisited?
This dispute dates back to the late nineteenth century, as the UK and Venezuela both claimed land between the Essequibo and Orinoco rivers. An international tribunal awarded the territory to British Guiana in 1899, a decision followed by a 1905 boundary agreement. Venezuela accepted this for over 60 years before reversing its position just prior to Guyana’s independence, arguing that British and Russian arbitrators colluded.
The African parallel is compelling. Colonial-era boundary agreements—made by European powers through arbitration, often excluding Africans—define most African state borders. Many of these have led to disputes and even wars. The ICJ, following the OAU and now the AU, relies on uti possidetis juris: colonial borders are inherited as they stand.
If the ICJ rules in favour of Venezuela — finding that a colonial-era arbitral award can be invalidated on grounds of procedural impropriety or collusion — it opens a legal pathway for African revisionist territorial claims. Every border in Africa drawn by a colonial arbitral process is potentially challengeable on similar grounds.
If the ICJ rules for Guyana and affirms the permanent validity of the 1899 award, the uti possidetis principle is reinforced. In that case, the pathway to border challenges closes, and African borders become more secure. Regional order is strengthened. However, the permanence of boundaries drawn without popular consent is also entrenched.
Either outcome will have deep consequences. Africa, with more active border disputes than any other continent, is therefore most affected by the ICJ’s ruling.
THE TRUMP FACTOR — AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR INTERNATIONAL LAW
The geopolitical context of these hearings has changed significantly since Guyana first filed its case in 2018.
The Trump administration’s military intervention in Venezuela is expected to pause Venezuela’s territorial claims over Essequibo—a move welcomed by energy majors in the region.
But the Trump factor raises a deeper question for international law: What if territorial disputes are settled by military intervention rather than the courts? The hearings continue, but Venezuela’s ability to pursue its claim has been stopped not by law, but by American power.
For Africa, that sets a different kind of precedent. If the lesson is that military power—not law—decides territory, the ICJ process risks becoming mere theatre. African states, which often resort to legal means to resolve disputes, would face weaker institutions.
These hearings in The Hague matter because they offer an alternative to military solutions: the idea that international law, not force, should determine borders.
THE 313,175 PEOPLE NOBODY IS WRITING ABOUT
Human beings lie behind every legal argument, oil barrel, and square kilometre of disputed territory.
Ambassador Donnett Street called Essequibo the “engine of economic development” for Guyana. It’s home to about 313,175 people, including nine Indigenous groups. Their nationality, rights, culture, and future are being decided by 15 judges in a distant courtroom and in a language they do not understand.
This reality isn’t unique to Essequibo. Across Africa—from Ethiopia’s Tigray to Western Sahara, Casamance in Senegal, or along the Nigeria-Cameroon border—the same dilemmas recur. People living on these borders rarely set or litigate them, but always live with the consequences.
The ICJ’s ruling — whenever it comes — will be cited in legal briefs, academic papers, and international talks for decades. The 313,175 people of Essequibo will live with it for generations.
WHAT NIGERIA MUST TAKE FROM THIS CASE
Nigeria has direct, documented experience with ICJ territorial rulings. The 2002 Bakassi Peninsula judgment ruled in Cameroon’s favour, largely based on colonial-era treaties signed without Nigerian consent. It remains one of the most consequential and contested territorial decisions in Nigeria’s history. Nigeria’s compliance, completed in 2008, was praised internationally but lamented domestically.
The Guyana vs. Venezuela decision will affect the legal framework that shaped this outcome. Nigerian analysts, scholars, and diplomats should follow these hearings daily—not as bystanders, but as stakeholders in the legal order that protects their territory.
There are currently at least three active or recently concluded territorial boundary disputes involving Nigerian territory — the Bakassi legacy, the Lake Chad Basin boundaries, and the ongoing maritime boundary questions in the Gulf of Guinea. Each of them will be affected, directly or indirectly, by the legal principles the ICJ articulates in its eventual judgment in this case.
Nigeria is not sending a delegation to The Hague this week. It should at least be paying attention.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The Guyana-Venezuela case is being reported as a South American story about oil and colonial history. It is both of those things. But it is also something larger — a test of whether the international legal order can resolve territorial disputes rooted in colonial-era decisions, or whether those disputes will ultimately be settled by the power of whoever has the largest military and the most powerful ally.
For Africa — a continent of 54 nations, every one of whose borders was drawn by someone else, many of whose boundaries remain actively disputed — the answer the ICJ delivers in The Hague will reverberate far beyond the Essequibo River.
The hearing ends on Monday, May 11, 2026. The judgment will follow. When it does, TheDiggerNews.com will be the first Nigerian publication to analyse its full consequences for African territorial sovereignty.
Watch this space.
Sources: International Court of Justice; Washington Post; JURIST; Guyana Chronicle; Kaieteur News; Guyana Standard; CNBC; Council on Foreign Relations; Petroleum Economist.
