On Friday we told you that the Bar Association of Belize had finally gotten the legal opinion on the Belize/Guatemala territorial dispute from regional international law expert, Professor Stephen Vascianne.
Well, we have read the opinion and it basically says that a yes to the ICJ is a safe vote, that Belize has a sound case, and Guatemala, really, has none at all. That corroborates what the experts have been saying, and, tonight, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is quietly taking a victory lap.
We spoke with the Ambassador to Guatemala Alexis Rosado about what the judgement says and what it means to government:..
H.E. Alexis Rosado, Belizean Ambassador to Guatemala
"The conclusion that he arrives at is in essence whereas there is so much of history and so much legal issues to look at in summary, Belize's case is very strong."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"He points out in here that all the diplomatic notes - he says that it is important that the diplomatic notes continue to underscore Belize's objection to Guatemalan activity in the Sarstoon and other types of encroachments. Has Belize sent enough? Have we sufficiently protested the various encroachments into the Sarstoon?"
H.E. Alexis Rosado
"Everything that happens in the Sarstoon that Guatemala shoes some kind of aggression, some kind of unfriendly act, some kind of violation of our sovereignty and territorial integrity - not just in the Sarstoon, anywhere in the territory of Belize, we protest immediately."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"There have been criticisms that the government itself needed a new legal opinion, because the Later pack et all opinion is from 2001. Is there anything new in this opinion which reflects the most updated thinking or precedence in international law?"
H.E. Alexis Rosado
"The professor does look at the ICJ case load and I was pleased to see that he even reported on the Chagos case - the advisor opinion of the ICJ that we received last week and which by the way strongly supported Belize's position. The conclusions are very helpful. He does do a very balance approach to both Belize's arguments and Guatemala arguments as well as even as I said before, even when he takes a charitable view of Guatemala's position, he finds that they have no chance and stand no, there is no possibility that Belize's boundaries could change or that Belize titles could be questioned at the International Court of Justice."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"The Council of Churches has said forthrightly vote yes to the ICJ and pray on it as well. Should the Bar Association embolded by this opinion say the same?"
H.E. Alexis Rosado
"Well I don't know how the Bar Association operates, but I would suspect that they would have to take heed of an independence study that they themselves commission."
But Professor Vascianne did entertain some scenarios under which Guatemala's case could be arguable. We asked him about those:…
H.E. Alexis Rosado
"He says that one of the weakens might be that Guatemala inherited this territory from Spain, but he could not find any evidence to show that such a thing happened and on the contrary he found that the evidence points squarely at British title to Belize, the whole of Belize from the Hondo to the Sarstoon at the time of Guatemalan independence in 1821. The other point that he says might be a weak point is that article 7 of the 1859 treaty may be found to not have been fulfilled by the British. In which case then the British would have breach the treaty and the effect such termination that Guatemala would have a right to, would be then that whatever applied prior to the signature of the treaty would be what would we would revert to, but he already said that it is the British who owned and had title to Belizean territory prior to the signature of 1859. So then we would just go back to square one to British ownership. In that case the boundary would not be affected at all."
We'll have more FROM Ambassador Rosado in tomorrow's newscast.
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