PULP MILLS (JUDGMENT)
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CARU Digest (Regulatory Decree No. 5837, Government of Entre Ríos,
26 December 1991, and Regulatory Decree No. 5394, Government
of Entre Ríos, 7 April 1997).
200. The Court considers it appropriate to now address the question
of the rules by which any allegations of breach are to be measured and,
more specifically, by which the existence of “harmful effects” is to be
determined. It is the view of the Court that these rules are to be found in
the 1975 Statute, in the co-ordinated position of the Parties established
through CARU (as the introductory phrases to Article 41 and Article 56
of the Statute contemplate) and in the regulations adopted by each Party
within the limits prescribed by the 1975 Statute (as paragraphs (a), (b)
and (c) of Article 41 contemplate).
201. The functions of CARU under Article 56 (a) include making
rules governing the prevention of pollution and the conservation
and preservation of living resources. In the exercise of its rule-making
power, the Commission adopted in 1984 the Digest on the uses of the
waters of the River Uruguay and has amended it since. In 1990, when
Section E3 of the Digest was adopted, the Parties recognized that it
was drawn up under Article 7 (f) of the 1961 Treaty and Articles 35,
36, 41 to 45 and 56 (a) (4) of the 1975 Statute. As stated in the
Digest, the “basic purposes” of Section E3 of the Digest are to be as
follows :
“(a) to protect and preserve the water and its ecological balance ;
(b) to ensure any legitimate use of the water considering long term
needs and particularly human consumption needs ;
(c) to prevent all new forms of pollution and to achieve its reduction in case the standard values adopted for the different legitimate uses of the River’s water are exceeded ;
(d) to promote scientific research on pollution.” (Title I, Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 1.)
202. The standards laid down in the Digest are not, however, exhaustive. As pointed out earlier, they are to be complemented by the rules and
measures to be adopted by each of the Parties within their domestic laws.
The Court will apply, in addition to the 1975 Statute, these two sets of
rules to determine whether the obligations undertaken by the Parties
have been breached in terms of the discharge of effluent by the mill as
well as in respect of the impact of those discharges on the quality of the
waters of the river, on its ecological balance and on its biodiversity.
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