{"id":10202,"date":"2026-05-10T14:50:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T14:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/10202\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T14:50:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T14:50:36","slug":"venezuelas-leader-heads-to-the-hague-over-essequibo-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/10202\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela\u2019s leader heads to The Hague over Essequibo claim"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" alt=\"\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"912\" height=\"570\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"html-img h-auto w-full\" style=\"color:transparent\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/13803948-Delcy-Rodriguez.webp\"\/>Venezuelan acting president Delcy Rodriguez\u2019s visit to The Hague is expected to be her first trip outside the Caribbean since assuming power. (EPA Images pic)<br \/>\nCARACAS: Venezuela\u2019s acting president Delcy Rodriguez said Saturday she is traveling to The Hague to represent her country before the International Court of Justice in a dispute over the oil-rich Essequibo region.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">\u201cIt has fallen to me to travel in the coming hours to defend our homeland,\u201d Rodriguez said in a televised speech, referring to the territory claimed by both Venezuela and neighbouring Guyana, which currently administers it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">It would be her first trip outside the Caribbean since assuming power following the capture of strongman Nicolas Maduro by US forces in January.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">The UN court has in recent days been hearing from representatives of Venezuela and Guyana over the centuries-old dispute that has at times threatened to spill over into military action. The hearings, which began on May 4, will conclude on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">The two countries have been wrangling over the region since the 1800s, with the conflict intensifying after ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">The Essequibo region comprises more than two-thirds of Guyana.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">Neighbouring Venezuela, however, claims the territory, which runs roughly along the western side of an eponymous river over an area of 160,000sq km.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">ICJ judges have been asked to rule on the validity of the border established between the two countries in 1899 under British colonial rule.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">Venezuela argues that the border should be drawn in accordance with a later document from 1966, signed before Guyana gained its independence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">It says that the Essequibo River, located much farther east than the current border, is the natural frontier, as it was in 1777 under Spanish colonial rule.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">Long under US sanctions, Rodriguez saw them lifted in April as part of a rapprochement with Washington, which saw Caracas grant US companies access to Venezuela\u2019s oil riches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">People appearing before the ICJ, the principal judicial organ of the UN, benefit from special legal protections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Venezuelan acting president Delcy Rodriguez\u2019s visit to The Hague is expected to be her first trip outside the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[8500,8529,7463,2923,8502,8530,42,5582,7462],"class_list":{"0":"post-10202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-hague","8":"tag-delcy-rodriguez","9":"tag-essequibo","10":"tag-guyana","11":"tag-international-court-of-justice","12":"tag-nicolas-maduro","13":"tag-oil-and-gas","14":"tag-the-hague","15":"tag-trip","16":"tag-venezuela"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}