Legal Consequences of and Approaches to the Question of Recognition of a Government of a State: Disputes involving Venezuela

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the ongoing dispute over the presidency of Venezuela as a case study on the state of international law relating to the recognition of governments. Since the beginning of the presidential deadlock in Venezuela in 2019, ICSID tribunals and ad hoc Committees, as well as the courts of England and Wales, have found themselves embroiled in the dispute over the Venezuelan presidency between the rival Maduro and Guaidó administrations. ICSID tribunals and committees have had to determine whose legal representatives are entitled to represent Venezuela in proceedings before them, while the English courts have been called upon to determine which administration has control over Venezuelan gold and other assets held in the UK. These disputes have brought renewed arbitral and judicial attention to the concepts of ‘effective control’ and recognition. This article examines how each of the courts and tribunals has addressed these concepts, and what their decisions tell us about the legal consequences of recognition as a matter of international and domestic law.