Will CARICOM stand up to Venezuela over its Guyana territorial claims?
On May 26, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro gazetted a decree which, for reasons of territorial defence, created an “Atlantic coast of Venezuela”. This new law contained coordinates and language that effectively claimed sovereignty over the offshore territorial waters of the Essequibo region of Guyana, a small part of Suriname’s exclusive economic zone, and Bird Island, on which Venezuela has built a naval base but to which Dominica may still have a de jure, if not de facto, maritime claim.
