After 5 years, the International Court of Justice in The Hague issued its verdict. According to experts, Bolivia and Chile have been engaged in dialogue, exchange of views and negotiations for more than a century in order to find a suitable solution to the question of Bolivia’s lack of access to the sea following the Second Pacific War (1879-1883) and the 1904 Treaty. However, on the basis of the documentary evidence submitted, the court ultimately “could not come to the conclusion that Chile has an obligation to negotiate with Bolivia to reach an agreement that guarantees the Bolivian side sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean”. The decision was read by the chairman of the court, Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, and was adopted by 12 votes to three. He stressed that the court could not satisfy the demands of the Bolivian side, however, the chairman noted that the court’s decision should not be perceived as not allowing the continuation of the dialogue between the two countries in the spirit of good neighborliness to discuss the issue in which both parties are interested.
For a long period of history, relations between Bolivia and Chile were marked not only by fear and distrust, but also often by open hostility and confrontation. Formal diplomatic ties between the two states were severed for more than fifty years, until the moment of the process of restoring mutual communication from the beginning of the negotiations in 1975-1977. Speaking of the third party to this conflict, Peruvian-Chilean relations, on the contrary, had a rival character for a long time, reaching a new round of military confrontation only in the new century. The differences in interpretation and execution of the 1929 Treaty were obvious until recently. Taken together, these differences had a direct impact on stability in the region, threatening the world and hampering economic and political integration. Trade flows between the three countries had low potential, and the shadow of a possible conflict provoked a sharp jump in spending in the military sphere (about 2.2% of GDP in Chile in 2012, following the Stockholm Center, exceeding the figures for military spending of Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Peru).
Even before the announcement of the decision, Morales himself touched on the topic of damage to his country as a result of armed conflict. “I would like everyone to know that we are not raising the economic part of the issue. If we wanted to touch upon the economic component after the invasion, how much Chile would have had to Bolivia”, – Morales said on the eve of the verdict. It is worth noting that the Bolivian leader even pardoned the two former presidents of the country so that they could support Chile’s demand for access to the ocean. It is about the former heads of state, Jorge Quiroga and Carlos Mesa.
Bolivians still do not want to admit their defeat, and in the words of the current government they will look for new tools and forms of struggle for “sovereign access to the sea”. However, the Chilean leadership stated that it intends to continue to be guided by the provisions of the 1904 Treaty, which enshrines the free movement of Bolivian goods through the Chilean ports in the Pacific Ocean, which Chile fully provided for all time. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chilean state in response to the decision of the International Court of Justice in The Hague in general stated that it had not and does not have any territorial disputes with Bolivia. In addition, if you evaluate the statements and actions of Evo Morales with the development of the maritime problem, you can easily see that the appetites of the Bolivian leader “grew”. If at the beginning of his presidency, he spoke of the intention to gain access to the ports of Chile in the Pacific and sought to provide Bolivia with a “corridor” to the sea, then soon the Bolivian leader demanded that the provisions of the Treaties of 1884 and 1904 be canceled and Bolivia return sovereignty over the lost territory of Antofagasta. Only time will tell whether the Bolivian leadership will be able to sit down at the negotiating table with the Chileans. However, the main task of the current government of Bolivia is still to preserve the main political project “Sea for Bolivia”, uniting the entire Bolivian nation, which is so necessary for the ruling party on the eve of the upcoming presidential elections in November 2019.