Law Experts on Guatemalan Military in the Sarstoon
The media took the opportunity to discuss the ongoing challenges with the Guatemalan Armed Forces in the Sarstoon with the legal experts from Leiden University. Ambassador Dylan Vernon explained on Wednesday that it is a continued part of international lobbying efforts to make it known that Guatemala has not honoured its commitment to establish a Sarstoon Protocol. Many have opined that Guatemala’s exertion of control over the Sarstoon may be a deliberate attempt at making a case of occupation in the south if the dispute is taken to court. One former Foreign Minister has even called it an attempt at annexation in the south. We asked the legal experts for their legal opinion on this matter.
Eric de Brabandere
Dr. Eric de Brabandere, Director, Grotius Centre for Int’l Dispute Resolution, Leiden University
“I can imagine that the idea to occupy a military portion of a land has a main objective to annex the territory otherwise, the other reason why you would do it is security reasons where you can say the state is not effectively protecting the security of our population and then they sort of step in and say we’re taking care of the security situation without the idea to actually annex the territory. I don’t know, but that is actually the two reasons why you could imagine that a state occupies a portion of the territory of another state.”
Giulia Pinzauti
Dr. Giulia Pinzauti, Former ICJ Law Clerk, Asst Professor, Leiden University
“But it also depends on the extent of the military presence there. How many troops are we talking about?”
Marleni Cuellar
“They built a new base and they follow even our military personnel when they go into the river. They’ve stopped Belizeans and the media; we’ve documented it and tell them to go back and check into Guatemala before we traverse into what is our side.”
Dr. Eric de Brabandere
“So their controlling the territory.”
Reporter
“And the Belize boundary is on the northern channel, the deepest navigable channel is the end of Belize territory. They are constantly crossing that in ways to intimidate, taunt…”
Dr. Giulia Pinzauti
“That’s exactly a situation where the court can help. That’s what I wanted to say. I can think of other cases where the situation is very different. There were troops in one state in a territory which was disputed by two states and the court involvement created de-militarized area and the troops of the two states left. So in that sense the court action was very effective. Most recently in the dispute between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Nicaragua built a military encampment on Isla Portillos which they claimed as Nicaraguan territory and Costa Rica claims that it was Costa Rican territory. And Costa Rica filed a request for what we call provisional measures; that is the judgment is of course going to take a long time before the dispute is settled. So in the interim, they ask the court to order some measures of protection and the court ordered the troops to leave the area.”
In the I.C.J., these types of provisional measures are effective immediately. There is the possibility of sanctions if there is a breach of the provisional measures while the dispute is still before the court.
