PULP MILLS (JUDGMENT) 54 ness for their desire to co-operate in ensuring “the optimum and rational utilization of the River Uruguay”. 91. That is why CARU plays a central role in the 1975 Statute and cannot be reduced to merely an optional mechanism available to the parties which each may use or not, as it pleases. CARU operates at all levels of utilization of the river, whether concerning the prevention of transboundary harm that may result from planned activities ; the use of water, on which it receives reports from the parties and verifies whether the developments taken together are liable to cause significant damage (Articles 27 and 28) ; the avoidance of any change in the ecological balance (Article 36) ; scientific studies and research carried out by one party within the jurisdiction of the other (Article 44) ; the exercise of the right of law enforcement (Article 46) ; or the right of navigation (Article 48). 92. Furthermore, CARU has been given the function of drawing up rules in many areas associated with the joint management of the river and listed in Article 56 of the 1975 Statute. Lastly, at the proposal of either party, the Commission can act as a conciliation body in any dispute which may arise between the parties (Article 58). 93. Consequently, the Court considers that, because of the scale and diversity of the functions they have assigned to CARU, the Parties intended to make that international organization a central component in the fulfilment of their obligations to co-operate as laid down by the 1975 Statute. 2. Uruguay’s obligation to inform CARU 94. The Court notes that the obligation of the State initiating the planned activity to inform CARU constitutes the first stage in the procedural mechanism as a whole which allows the two parties to achieve the object of the 1975 Statute, namely, the optimum and rational utilization of the River Uruguay”. This stage, provided for in Article 7, first paragraph, involves the State which is initiating the planned activity informing CARU thereof, so that the latter can determine “on a preliminary basis” and within a maximum period of 30 days whether the plan might cause significant damage to the other party. 95. To enable the remainder of the procedure to take its course, the parties have included alternative conditions in the 1975 Statute : either that the activity planned by one party should be liable, in CARU’s opinion, to cause significant damage to the other, creating an obligation of prevention for the first party to eliminate or minimize the risk, in consultation with the other party ; or that CARU, having been duly informed, should not have reached a decision in that regard within the prescribed period. 96. The Court notes that the Parties are agreed in considering that the two planned mills were works of sufficient importance to fall within the scope of Article 7 of the 1975 Statute, and thus for CARU to have been 44