All the hype and hysteria about the ICJ has subsided because the Guatemalans have unilaterally nixed plans to have simultaneous national referendums on the issue. So, the whole issue of whether we will or we won't go to the ICJ is at best, in limbo, and, at worst, on a permanent backburner.
And so while the issue of having the ICJ settle our territorial dispute is at rest, what about Belize and Guatemala's territorial waters? Those have never been formally defined – because adding a maritime dispute to the land dispute, would only make the centuries old issue even more intractable.
But what would the ICJ says about who should get what in those waters? That's what visiting Australian professor Robert Gullett spoke about today at a lecture organized by the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism. He's the Dean of Law at the University of Wollongong, and an expert on the Law of The Sea. His presentation at the Radisson this afternoon was called, "Defining lines in the sea: Reflections on the evolving jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice in maritime boundary delimitation."
He opened up by explaining that because Guatemala's small sliver of coast along the Bay of Honduras at Puerto Barrios curves inwards, they may be entitled to some special consideration for maritime rights before the ICJ.
Professor Warwick Gullett - Dean of Law, University of Wollongong, Australia
"Guatemala is geographically squeezed between Belize and Honduras. The sympathetic ICJ might wish to give Guatemala a greater slice of the Caribbean. So in the Gulf of Honduras while the key thing is how long each of the countries coastline is that projects into the sea into the Gulf of Honduras. So you've got Belize further down, you've got Guatemala on a concave an area and then going into Honduras. So one of the issues of international court or tribunals would look at is the link of those relative coastlines and the relatively shorter coastline from Guatemala and the one thing that the Tribunals often look at is whether they can be disadvantaged because they are squeezed between two other countries."
Jules Vasquez
"How does the unsettled area issue of the maritime area - how does that factor into the larger initiative to take this referendum to the IJC?"
Professor Warwick Gullett
"Well from a legal perspective they are really quite different. You can't completely settle off your jurisdiction until you get the land territory settled because the land is what is key to country's right offshore. The land issue has to be settled before you can have settlement offshore. In my view I am really surprised that Guatemala is pressing its claims because it seems very strange to try to seek sovereignty over Belize that has been independent for over 30 years and has had self-government before that which completely contradicts the approach of international right to self termination. I'm very surprised that Guatemala might think they have a good case. There are certainly nothing stopping Belize to look at where the Southern border is and then project that on chance for that area for the continuation of Belize claims to see beyond the territorial sea and put them on a chart to see what Guatemala can look at. I guess Guatemala would say they disagree with that and from the point of view from where it starts at the land where the border is with Belize. Other wise whether Belize is claiming area that goes further into the southern area of Gulf of Honduras that Guatemala to claim is theirs.The problem is the only way this can be settled is by an agreement with Guatemala and sitting down and settling that or other wise going to a third party procedure."
Gullett is on a Caribbean Lecture Tour; before arriving in Belize, he made stops in Barbados and Jamaica.
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