 The British at first rebuffed the United States government's suggestion of arbitration, but when President Grover Cleveland threatened to intervene according to the Monroe Doctrine, Britain agreed to let an international tribunal arbitrate the boundary in 1897.For two years, the tribunal consisting of two Britons, two Americans, and a Russian studied the case in Paris (France).Their three-to-two decision, handed down in 1899, awarded 94 percent of the disputed territory to British Guiana.