Across energy and financial markets, there have been billions of reasons to pay a lot of attention to Guyana in recent years—11 billion reasons to be more precise because that's the estimated number of recoverable barrels of oil that sit in Guyana's offshore waters. These finds have catapulted tiny Guyana in South America's northern coast, with a population less than 900,000, into the upper echelons of the world's most prolific oil producers. And with these massive reserves—already the country has the second highest number of barrels per capita in the world, ahead of heavyweights like Saudi Arabia and Qatar—Guyana is beginning to flex its muscles on the global diplomatic stage, highlighting important issues that have been ignored for far too long by traditional powers. Unlike so many other small oil-rich states that have been somewhat content to sit back and just cash checks from the deals they cut with foreign oil companies, Guyana is leveraging its economic mojo and transforming it into effective diplomatic soft power on the global stage.

Case in point: This February, the country assumed the presidency of the highly consequential United Nations Security Council, where it is serving as a non-permanent member through the end of 2025. One might think that the country would have used this vaunted position to help address the unsettling........

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