Delcy Rodriguez is heading to The Hague for the guyana land dispute case at the International Court of Justice, where Venezuela is pressing its claim over the Essequibo region. Rodriguez announced the trip on Saturday and said she would travel “in the coming hours” to defend Venezuela.

The acting president of Venezuela said in a televised speech, “It has fallen to me to travel in the coming hours to defend our homeland.” The visit to the Netherlands will be her first trip outside the Caribbean since January, after Nicolas Maduro was abducted by US forces and flown to the United States to stand trial.

The Hague hearing over Essequibo

The United Nations’ top civil court in The Hague has already been hearing arguments in the Venezuela-Guyana case. The dispute centers on Essequibo, a region that Venezuela claims and that Guyana currently administers. Essequibo accounts for two-thirds of Guyana’s current territory.

The legal fight is not only about land on a map. The case focuses on whether the border established in 1899 under British colonial rule should remain valid, or whether the border should be drawn in accordance with a later document from 1966 signed before Guyana gained independence.

Venezuela and Guyana claims

Rodriguez was Maduro’s vice president when he was captured and flown to the United States. She had long been under US sanctions, and the US sanctions on Rodriguez were lifted when she became acting president. Rodriguez has so far not made the trip to the United States after saying she was invited there by the Trump administration.

Guyana’s position remains tied to its administration of Essequibo, while Venezuela keeps pressing its claim before the court. ExxonMobil’s discovery of offshore oil deposits in Essequibo added to the region’s weight in the case, giving the court’s review of the 1899 border and the 1966 document added urgency for both governments.

What The Hague decides next

The immediate next step is the ongoing hearing at the International Court of Justice, where the border dispute is being argued in public record. Rodriguez’s trip puts Venezuela’s acting president directly into that process, while Guyana continues to defend its control of the territory as the judges weigh the rival claims over Essequibo.