I’ve been trying figure out what is it exactly about this whole ICJ debate that bothers me so much. Is it that I simply disagree with certain positions? Nah, that’s not it; people are entitled to their positions, and we wouldn’t have a healthy democracy otherwise. Is it that my I.S.T.J. mind just cannot tolerate how emotional some arguments have become? Nope. That can’t be it, because I’d be concerned if patriotic Belizeans weren’t moved to their core on this matter. So, then what is it?

And then it hit me. It’s the fact that I miss the days when an argument clearly separated between facts and opinions. In this post-truth or post-fact era, there’s an interesting phenomenon where opinions are no longer necessarily based on facts; but on other opinions disguised as opinions. The mechanics of how this works seem to exist within #ECHOchambers, which are dangerous in and of themselves.

To illustrate what I mean, here’s a simple example.

FACT: in the mid 1990’s, then Prime Minister Esquivel tried to reduce the wage bill via a retrenchment program that sought to cut staffing in central government by 9 percent.

How do we know this is fact? Well because it’s verifiable from
more than one sources (See, inter alia, page 18 of Link # 1 and Link # 2 below).

Okay, now there may be opinions based on said facts. For example:

OPINION A: “I don’t think the Esquivel Administration should have started that retrenchment program. They should have used some other method.”

OPINION B: “Considering the circumstances, it may not have been the most palatable thing to do, but it was the most practical.”

Coming now to the Territorial Dispute, and more precisely the debate of the referendum, we could close our eyes and pick a fact at random. Chosen at random, the first that came to mind upon writing this post is this simple fact about the ICJ’s bias in favor of Boundary Treaties.

FACT: The ICJ’s case law demonstrates a Court that is highly biased in favor of preserving Boundary Treaties. This was seen in several cases, including the Nigeria v Cameroon case. On page 15 of Link # 3, we find the following excerpt ( at Source A):

SOURCE A: “In its attempt to claim sovereignty over the peninsula, Nigeria argued that the agreement should be disregarded because it had to be approved by the German parliament according to the German law of the time, an approval that did not take place. The Court did not declare so. Instead of delving into German law to assess whether the agreement was valid, the Court looked at the parties’ external behaviour regarding it.” (You could read the rest at Link # 3 page 15).

SOURCE B: In another legal paper, we find the following statement (see page 4 of Link # 4 below):

“As compared to the other bases for territorial claims, the treaty
justification is more legal in nature—that is, it is less emotionally
persuasive than an historical claim might be. Nevertheless, claims based on treaty law are PARTICULARLY PERSUASIVE at the ICJ because Article 38 of the ICJ Statute obligates the court to consider treaties. Moreover, through treaties parties agree to relinquish their historical or other claims to the property subject to the treaty.

“Thus, it is no surprise that treaties (unless defective) are binding on the parties that have RATIFIED them.” (Emphasis added).

Those are factual statements. However, we could have opinions from those facts.

OPINION A: “Although, the ICJ appears to have a strong preference for upholding treaties, I feel sorry for Nigeria, because I have familial roots there.” :O

OPINION B: “Observing the ICJ’s bias in favor of upholding boundary treaties, it’s hard for the unbiased observer to see the 1859 Treaty being declared invalid, but I still think we should vote for an Advisory Opinion as opposed to a binding one.”

If that’s the way we have been approaching this matter, with clear distinctions between Facts and Opinions, even if we ended up with a “NO” vote, I’d be perfectly fine; because, the issue and its relevant facts were adequately ventilated, and people #votedTHEfacts.

But when you have people, BELIZEANS no less, going out of their way to try and convince people of what they must know at this juncture is just not true, then what essentially is being done is folks trying to tip the scale with blatant untruths or with decontextualized statements; thereby, disrespecting the intelligence of our fellow Belizean voters and attempting to take people for fools. But because of the Echo Chamber effect, these people are hailed as heroes in some quarters.

Sadly, the only way to break the Echo Chamber is for people to be citizens, and seek out and read information for themselves. It is for this reason, most of my posts provide the links to the documents I cite, so everyone could #ReadITthemself.

Link #1 https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/1998/cr98109.pdf

Link #2: http://www.7newsbelize.com/sstory.php?nid=1698&frmsrch=1

Link # 3: http://www.ejil.org/pdfs/23/2/2281.pdf

Link # 4: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi…