Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodriguez to Appear at ICJ in Guyana Border Dispute

Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodriguez is heading to The Hague to defend her country’s position in a long-running land dispute with Guyana at the International Court of Justice. U.S. forces in January 2026.

“It has fallen to me to travel in the coming hours to defend our homeland,” Rodriguez said in a televised speech. The United Nations’ top civil court has already been hearing arguments in the Venezuela-Guyana case. The dispute centers on the oil-rich Essequibo region, which Venezuela claims even though it is currently administered by Guyana.

The sprawling territory accounts for two-thirds of Guyana’s current territory. ExxonMobil’s discovery of offshore oil deposits in Essequibo transformed the stakes. The find gave Guyana, a country with a population of less than a million, the largest per capita crude oil reserves in the world.

The ICJ case focuses on whether the border established in 1899 under British colonial rule should remain valid or whether the border should follow the 1966 document signed before Guyana’s independence. U.S. sanctions.

Those sanctions on Delcy Rodriguez were lifted when she became acting president. Officials attending ICJ proceedings are typically granted special legal protections.

U.S. Demands. Those include stopping oil deliveries to Cuba, opening Venezuela’s state-owned oil industry to foreign companies, and releasing political prisoners. At the same time she has sought to strike a careful balance with Venezuela’s influential internal security apparatus and military.

U.S. She has visited the nearby Caribbean islands of Grenada and Barbados. The journey to the Netherlands therefore represents only her second international foray since assuming the role of acting president.

U.S. forces occurred in January 2026. Rodriguez assumed leadership afterward while Maduro faces trial in the United States. Her emergence as acting president followed years of sanctions that were only removed once she took office.

Al Jazeera reported that the centuries-old dispute has taken on fresh urgency since the oil discovery. Venezuelan officials argue the 1899 border award was unfair while Guyana maintains the colonial-era line remains binding. Both sides have presented lengthy arguments before the ICJ in recent months.