Felipe Bulnes, the Chilean agent on The Hague, talked again about the ICJ verdict, where the preliminary objection submitted by Chile against the Bolivian demand was dismissed.
He was very clear pointing out that this is not a defeat for our country. On this point he noted that is very important to well understand the tribunal’s language and also explained what really means the International Court of Justice sentence.
Bulnes, observed that “what the court has resolved is that Bolivia is not asking an obligation to negotiate with a predetermined result. Thus, Bolivia is not demanding an obligation to negotiate that could be finally conduct, under the court imposition, to cede territory. Otherwise, Bolivia is only requiring a simple obligation to negotiate access to the Pacific Ocean”.
Is due to this facts that the nature of this trial has passed from now on to be substantially limited or modified. This is not anymore a trial from which it could derivate any affection to the Chilean territory´s integrity, Then what the court can declare is that Chile has or not the obligation to negotiate of good faith with Bolivia respect to these objective”.
Bulnes detailed that “the Chilean preliminary objection simply was not accepted by the Court. Because the court consider that while Chile estimated that Bolivia tried to attempted to our territorial integrity through its demands, the Court said ´No, we determinate that the Bolivian demand can just become to this limit, which is the obligation to negotiate´ and then, the Chilean territorial integrity is not in risk, and in like manner it doesn´t disputed with the 1904 arrangement”.
