The In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice (ICJ) is set to be­gin oral hear­ings on May 4, in the long-run­ning bor­der dis­pute be­tween Guyana and Venezuela, mark­ing a piv­otal phase in one of the coun­try’s most con­se­quen­tial le­gal bat­tles.

Dur­ing his week­ly pro­gramme “Is­sues in the News”, Guyana’s At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs, Mo­hab­ir Anil Nand­lall, said that hear­ings are sched­uled for May 4-8, and may ex­tend in­to the fol­low­ing week.

The pro­ceed­ings rep­re­sent a crit­i­cal step in Guyana’s ef­fort to se­cure a fi­nal, peace­ful, and bind­ing res­o­lu­tion to the decades-old con­tro­ver­sy over the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion, which ac­counts for more than two-thirds of its ter­ri­to­ry.