MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Pulp mills conflict: ruling expected in September

Hearings before a Mercosur trade block arbitration court in Montevideo in connection with a presentation filed by Uruguay against Argentina concluded Thursday behind closed doors.

Uruguay claims to have suffered almost 500 million dollars in economic losses due to road blocks set up earlier in the year by Argentine environmentalists to protest against two paper pulp mills in Uruguay. The Uruguayan government claims its Argentine counterpart did nothing to end the protests and demands that in the future Argentina be forced to impede such actions.

The court presentation filed by the Tabaré Vázquez administration on May 3 has already been officially replied by Buenos Aires.

Hearings begun last Wednesday with the presentation of witnesses from both sides in the dispute and on Thursday government delegates made their claims.

As established in the Mercosur Olivos Protocol regarding controversies, discussions were behind closed doors.

The Mercosur's ad hoc court in Montevideo has until September 7 to issue a ruling, which could be appealed.

Argentina had advanced its position saying that it did not crack down on the protesters because it placed the campaigners' "human right to freedom of speech" ahead of the legal right "to circulate freely."

The Argentine government also said bilateral trade was not hampered by the protest and that there was always at least one of three land-passes open. Argentina has announced it plans to appeal if it loses.

At the height of the controversy dozens of loaded trucks, including from Chile had to re-route cargos to other areas or appeal to maritime or fluvial transport. Many of the trucks blocked by protestors were carrying equipment and material for the two pulp mills under construction in Uruguay, Ence and Botnia.

According to a release from the Uruguayan Foreign Affairs ministry "Argentina has unfulfilled its obligations under Mercosur norms" because of its omission in adopting measures to prevent and/or cease impediments to the free circulation.

The court is formed by three judges: an Argentine, a Uruguayan and a Spaniard. Buenos Aires has challenged the Spanish judge because he has the same nationality as the firm ENCE, one of the two companies involved in the construction of the two paper pulp mills outside the Uruguayan town of Fray Bentos, on the shore of the River Uruguay. The other company, Botnia is from Finland.

From Buenos Aires Argentine Foreign Affairs minister Jorge Taiana formally rejected an offer by his Uruguayan counterpart Reinaldo Gargano for both countries to oversee the two mills once they are operating to control that they do not pollute the River Uruguay as contemplated in the 1975 shared fluvial management and development treaty.