And so, while Shoman feels supremely confident about the path to the ICJ - organizationally, it's not a cakewalk. As the Agent, he has a list of 10 major priorities which we'll tell you all about tomorrow.
But we can tell you tonight what's the top three. Number one is repealing the Maritime Areas Act - and that's happening on Monday; number two is writing to the registrar of the ICJ by 9th June to lodge the case. And number three is submitting an application to the Court for what are known as "provisional measures." As we told you those measures would ask the court to intervene and stop the Guatemalans from employing aggressive militaristic behaviors on our the Sarstoon - which is our southern boundary. Shoman told us why the Sarstoon is a top priority:..,.
H.E. Assad Shoman- Named Belize's Agent at ICJ
"The Sarstoon situation, right? We are working on that, getting all the evidence, preparing to brief our lawyers with a view to asking the court to apply for provisional measures, right."
Jules Vasquez- Reporter
"The Prime Minister had said that, well now that we are both going to court maybe the Guatemalan's will agree to stop this aggression on the Sarstoon."
H.E. Assad Shoman
"Now, he said, I heard him say that. Imagine the situation. If we framed a request for provisional measures for the court to ask Guatemala to do ABC, right. And if before that Guatemala says to us, 'Look we are looking to do ABC.' How do you justify going to a court and asking them to do what they already said they would do? We have to watch that. I personally don't have much hope that the Guatemalan's will come to their senses, if I can put it that way. But in politics anything is possible. So, we need to work but we need to watch developments as well."
Jules Vasquez
"So, you do see it as a matter of utmost urgency that these aggressions stop."
H.E. Assad Shoman
"That these things stop, yes. One way or the other. Absolutely. One way or the other it should stop."
Jules Vasquez
"What is the norm that should pertain?"
H.E. Assad Shoman
"The norm is the one that pertained up to 2005. Everybody was, under the treaty- article 6 of the 1859 treaty, both countries have freedom of navigation along the river. We don't interfere with one another and we were behaving like that virtually the entire time; for over 150 years."
Email
Print