The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague began hearing arguments on Monday in the long-running territorial dispute between Guyana and Venezuela over the Essequibo — a 160,000 sq km region that makes up roughly two-thirds of Guyana's landmass and sits atop major offshore oil deposits discovered by ExxonMobil in 2015. Guyana, which has administered the territory for over a century, is asking the court to confirm the border established by an 1899 arbitral ruling, while Venezuela, basing its claim partly on a 1966 agreement signed with Britain before Guyana's independence, argues the region is rightfully its own. The week-long hearings, running until 11 May, come amid sustained tensions: Venezuela's current leadership, following a January U.S. military intervention that removed Nicolás Maduro, has continued to press the claim, and Caracas has twice defied ICJ orders to refrain from holding elections or creating new administrative structures in the disputed territory.