PULP MILLS (JUDGMENT)
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the plan, subject to it requesting the other party, through the Commission, to supplement as necessary the documentation it has provided.
If the notified party raises no objections, the other party may carry out
or authorize the work (Article 9). Otherwise, the former must notify the
latter of those aspects of the work which may cause it damage and of the
suggested changes (Article 11), thereby opening a further 180-day period
of negotiation in which to reach an agreement (Article 12).
115. The obligation to notify is therefore an essential part of the process leading the parties to consult in order to assess the risks of the plan
and to negotiate possible changes which may eliminate those risks or
minimize their effects.
116. The Parties agree on the need for a full environmental impact
assessment in order to assess any significant damage which might be
caused by a plan.
117. Uruguay takes the view that such assessments were carried out in
accordance with its legislation (Decree No. 435/994 of 21 September 1994,
Environmental Impact Assessment Regulation), submitted to DINAMA
for consideration and transmitted to Argentina on 7 November 2003 in
the case of the CMB (ENCE) project and on 19 August 2005 for the
Orion (Botnia) project. According to Uruguay, DINAMA asked the
companies concerned for all the additional information that was required
to supplement the original environmental impact assessments submitted
to it, and only when it was satisfied did it propose to the Ministry of the
Environment that the initial environmental authorizations requested
should be issued, which they were to CMB on 9 October 2003 and to
Botnia on 14 February 2005.
Uruguay maintains that it was not required to transmit the environmental impact assessments to Argentina before issuing the initial environmental authorizations to the companies, these authorizations having
been adopted on the basis of its legislation on the subject.
118. Argentina, for its part, first points out that the environmental
impact assessments transmitted to it by Uruguay were incomplete, particularly in that they made no provision for alternative sites for the mills
and failed to include any consultation of the affected populations. The
Court will return later in the Judgment to the substantive conditions
which must be met by environmental impact assessments (see paragraphs 203 to 219).
Furthermore, in procedural terms, Argentina considers that the initial
environmental authorizations should not have been granted to the companies before it had received the complete environmental impact assessments, and that it was unable to exercise its rights in this context under
Articles 7 to 11 of the 1975 Statute.
119. The Court notes that the environmental impact assessments which
are necessary to reach a decision on any plan that is liable to cause sig49