PROFESSOR ECKSTEIN REPRESENTS BOLIVIA BEFORE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE OVER DISPUTED WATERS

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Professor Gabriel Eckstein, Director of the Texas A&M Energy, Environmental, and Natural Resource Systems Law Program and an expert in international and transboundary water law, represented the country of Bolivia at the International Court of Justice in its dispute with neighbor, Chile, in the Dispute over the Status and Use of the Waters of the Silala, April 1-14, 2022.

As one of four attorneys to plead the case on Bolivia’s behalf before the Court, Eckstein presented to the Court in two separate sessions, as well as assisted the Bolivian team to prepare its experts for cross-examination.  “Having focused much of my research, publications, and work experience on international and global water issues, it was an absolute thrill and really quite surreal to appear before the Court,” Eckstein said.

The case — Dispute Over the Status and Use of the Waters of the Silala (Chile v. Bolivia) — was one of only a handful of international tribunal cases to ever focus on international water law.  It involved water that emerges from springs in Bolivia in fragile wetlands, and flows to Chile largely through artificial channels that were installed nearly 100 years ago by a private company.  The springs and the channels are located on the edge of one of the driest regions in the world — the Atacama Desert — where every drop of water is precious.

Eckstein says the main legal issues focused on the rights and obligations that the two nations have to this water — right to use, rights and obligations to conserve, obligations to prevent harm to the other nation through the use of the water, and obligations to notify each other prior to undertaking any activity related to the water.

Eckstein said, "it was truly an honor and privilege to serve as counsel to a nation, to represent its interest, and to defend its rights under international law in a case that centers on my particular expertise — the intersection of law and science, especially freshwater resources.”

Videos of all of the hearings are available on the multimedia page of the Court’s website. Eckstein appeared on April 4 (beginning at 27:50) and April 13 (beginning at 1:45).