The United Nations’ highest court has rejected an attempt by landlocked Bolivia to force Chile to the negotiating table over granting access to the Pacific Ocean.
In a legal ruling from The Hague-based international court of justice that was broadcast live throughout Bolivia, the 15-judge panel said that a string of agreements, memorandums and statements produced over decades of talks had not created a legal obligation on Chile to enter negotiations.
In a sweeping rejection of the Bolivian case, the court, by a 12-3 majority, dismissed eight different legal arguments presented by Bolivia’s lawyers.
Bolivia lost its only coast to neighboring Chile during an 1879-1883 war and the country has demanded ocean access for generations.
At hearings in March Eduardo Rodríguez Veltze, Bolivia’s former president, told judges: “Restoring Bolivia’s sovereign access to the sea would make a small difference to Chile, but it would transform the destiny of Bolivia.”
But Chile argued in court that its border with Bolivia was settled in a 1904 treaty and that it had no obligation to negotiate.
While rejecting Bolivia’s request for judges to order Chile to negotiate, the world court’s president, Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, said the decision “should not be understood as precluding the parties from continuing their dialogue and exchanges, in a spirit of good neighborliness, to address the issues relating to the landlocked situation of Bolivia, the solution to which they have both recognized to be a matter of mutual interest”.
Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president, who was in court for the ruling, told reporters that “Bolivia will never give up” its claim.
“The people of the world know that Bolivia had an invasion and we had our sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean taken away from us,” he said.
Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera, lashed out at his Bolivian counterpart as he hailed the ICJ’s decision.
“President Evo Morales of Bolivia has created false expectations in his own people, and has created great frustration in his own people,” he said in a statement.
“We have lost five valuable years of the healthy and necessary relationship that Chile needs with all neighbouring countries, including Bolivia.”
The ruling was broadcast on giant screens at public squares in the Bolivian capital, La Paz, and in an indication of the significance of the decision for both counties, Catholic bishops in Bolivia and Chile on Sunday called on their congregations to accept the court’s ruling “with faith, peace and good sense”.
In Bolivia, groups linked to the government held public vigils to wait for the reading. As part of the preparations on Sunday, a group of spiritual guides called yatiris from the Aymara ethnic group made an offering to the Pachamama, or earth mother, on Sunday in a plaza in La Paz for a ruling favorable to the Bolivians.
This article includes material from the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse
