Environmental Provisions in the Constitutions of Uruguay and Argentina Affecting Water Resource Management

Abstract

This chapter identifies the similarities and differences between the existing constitutional and legislative environmental regimes in Uruguay and Argentina, with attention being paid to aspects that may be reflected in the management of water resources.

Emphasis in differences offers interesting avenues of thought to the scholar of comparative law that they constituted a single political entity from the discovery of the La Plata River, in 1516 up to 1828, when Uruguay became an independent state. The two countries share borders marked by a river and a vast estuary (the Uruguay and the La Plata Rivers) of enormous economic and environmental significance for both nations, which have agreed in entrusting their management to binational commissions. Uruguay and Argentina are founding members of the Common Market of the South.

Significant differences are noticeable in environmental constitutional approaches and provisions in each country. The impacts of the constitutional structure of the respective states upon the width of the environmental rights recognized in terms of the hierarchy of international treaties compared with that of the national constitution in each country.

Finally, two outstanding environmental water-related issues are invoked, namely, (1) the recent Argentina-Uruguay dispute on contamination of the Uruguay River by European pulp mills operating in the Uruguayan territory and the International Court of Justice decision thereupon and (2) the nature and legal effects of the Uruguayan October 2004 constitutional amendment on the country’s water resources, heralded by The UNESCO Courier as unique (“A world’s first”) (“In an overwhelming majority vote, water was enshrined in Uruguay’s constitution as public property – a world first.” The UNESCO Courier, March, 2006 • ISSN 1993-8616) after a popular pronouncement with over 64 % of citizens’ support.