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Argentina and Uruguay: A Chance to Get Relations Back on Track

Marcela Valente*

BUENOS AIRES, Apr 20 2010 (IPS) - Tuesday’s International Court of Justice ruling on the conflict between Argentina and Uruguay over a pulp mill on the Uruguayan side of a border river offers a way out of a dispute that has marred relations between the two countries for several years, diplomats and experts say.

The ICJ ruled that when it authorised construction of the plant, Uruguay breached the 1975 treaty governing the joint use of the river by failing to consult with Argentina regarding an activity that would have a possible impact on the water.

However, the world court stated that Uruguay “has not breached its substantive obligations for the protection of the environment,” considered the deeper underlying issue in the complaint filed by Buenos Aires against Montevideo.

The magistrates said there was “insufficient evidence” that the Orion (Botnia) plant, which began to operate in November 2007, has polluted the river with dioxins, furans, phosphorus or other toxic substances.

The ruling thus states that Argentina has failed to demonstrate “any harm, or risk of harm, to the river or its ecosystem…that would be sufficient to warrant the dismantling of the Botnia plant.” It also said it would not be appropriate to make Uruguay pay damages.

The Court made a distinction between “procedural” and “substantive” obligations under the treaty, and said Uruguay had not breached the latter when it allowed construction of the plant to go ahead in spite of the dispute with Argentina.

Because the 1975 treaty does not make consent obligatory, Uruguay was not “barred from proceeding with the construction and operation” of the plant after negotiations between the two countries collapsed on Feb. 3, 2006, the Court said.

However, prior to that date, the judges said, Montevideo breached its obligation to “inform, notify and negotiate.”

“Consequently the wrongful conduct of Uruguay…could not extend beyond that period,” they added.

The governments reacted circumspectly to the ruling, while diplomats and experts recommended taking advantage of it to launch a new phase of cooperation, despite the continuing protests by local residents on the Argentine side of the river.

The Orion plant, which was built by Finnish paper and pulp company Botnia and sold to another Finnish firm, UPM, in December, produces some 3,000 tons a day of paper pulp on the outskirts of the city of Fray Bentos in western Uruguay, on the banks of the Uruguay River.

Residents of the Argentine city of Gualeguaychú, located 22 km from the plant on a tributary of the Uruguay river, have blocked a border bridge off and on for the past five years, mainly during the southern hemisphere summer, to protest possible pollution by the pulp mill.

After frustrated attempts at reaching a negotiated solution, Buenos Aires brought legal action against Montevideo in May 2006 at the ICJ, based in the Dutch city of The Hague. Today, the administration of Cristina Fernández received the verdict with guarded optimism.

Argentina’s chief representative in the case, Susana Ruiz Cerutti, cited the Court’s recommendation to “return to the route of cooperation, which we should never have abandoned.”

She also stressed that for the Court, the treaty “is a very important instrument for protecting the river and that neither of the parties can ignore it as Uruguay did.”

Argentine political scientist Vicente Palermo, one of the editors of the book “Del otro lado del río. Ambientalismo y política entre uruguayos y argentinos” (From the Other Side of the River: Environmentalism and Politics Between Uruguayans and Argentines), told IPS that Buenos Aires should propose to Montevideo “a route of regional cooperation.”

Argentina “must publicly and unequivocally put a halt to intentions or demands against Uruguay with respect to Botnia” and “recognise the validity of the environmental studies and accept Uruguay’s proposal for joint monitoring” of the river, he said.

The fact that Uruguay has a new government may help. Relations between former President Tabaré Vázquez (2005-2010) and Argentina “were badly frayed,” he said.

But the new administration headed by José Mujica – of the left-wing Broad Front like his predecessor – who took office in March, “has more room to take the initiative,” Palermo said.

In a news briefing, Uruguayan Foreign Minister Luis Almagro reiterated the Mujica administration’s interest in following a route of “dialogue, understanding and support.”

The minister underscored that according to the Court, Montevideo had not breached its substantive obligations, which pointed to the “excellence” of Uruguay’s environmental policies.

Almagro said the ruling strengthened the Uruguay River Administrative Commission (CARU), established by the river treaty, and said he was immediately getting in touch with his Argentine counterpart Jorge Taiana to agree on a bilateral meeting on the issue.

But the people on the other side of the river were far from pleased by the verdict. Lawyer Osvaldo Fernández of the Gualeguaychú Citizens Environmental Assembly told IPS that the ruling “does not solve” the conflict and that “the struggle will continue.”

The roadblocks on the “General San Martín” bridge connecting the two countries have had a major impact on tourism and local businesses.

“The verdict is absurd. It compellingly expands on Uruguay’s illegal conduct, but orders no penalty,” Fernández complained.

The members of the Assembly will meet Wednesday to carry out an in-depth analysis of the legal decision, and on Sunday Mar. 25 they will hold a march against the plant, before meeting again on Wednesday Apr. 28 to discuss their future strategy. In that meeting, they will decide whether or not to lift the roadblock in place almost continuously since 2006. The activists have not ruled out the possibility of bringing another lawsuit before the ICJ, if evidence of pollution is detected, or before an international human rights body, the lawyer said.

María Selva Ortiz with REDES/Friends of the Earth Uruguay told IPS that the ruling “was foreseeable,” because it was “obvious” that Montevideo breached the procedures established by the river treaty.

When the Court says it does not have evidence to conclude that the plant pollutes, “it is referring to the maximum accepted limits,” she said.

“For now, it is within those limits. That doesn’t mean there is no pollution. When you look at the levels of pollution of these plants, they’re extremely dangerous in the long term,” she warned.

“But this dispute has nothing to do with the concerns that the Uruguayan environmental movement has been expressing since the 1990s,” with respect to the country’s policies encouraging plantation forestry.

In the view of REDES/Friends of the Earth, the traffic blockades and the anger they have caused in Uruguay “consolidated public support” for the plant, Ortiz said.

The debate will hopefully now focus on “the productive model and the kind of economy represented by” projects related to the paper and pulp mill industry, she added.

And she pointed to a paradox: in Uruguay “we are rich in grasslands and filling them up with trees, while in the Amazon they are cutting down trees to bring in cows and plant food.”

* With additional reporting by Raúl Pierri in Montevideo.